


It Had To Be You

by bluemoongirl99, mousefrnk



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Bandom Big Bang 2017, M/M, Sassy Mikey, happy and then not so happy gerard, miserable frank, oblivious ray, weird time lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-16 22:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12351951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemoongirl99/pseuds/bluemoongirl99, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousefrnk/pseuds/mousefrnk
Summary: Frank Iero lives in a city he hates, works in a job where no one cares, and has a dog that is sick just about as much as he is. It wasn’t always like this. Once, he had a life that he loved.Gerard Way is dragging himself through life with no purpose or direction. He still lives at home with his parents and works at his friend’s family’s record shop. When he meets Frank, his life is changed forever, for the better.Told in alternating chapters from two points of the same timeline, this is the story of Frank and Gerard.





	It Had To Be You

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for Bandom Big Bang 2017. 
> 
> So often, a fic will have all of the build up to a relationship and just a glimpse into the future at the very end. What I wanted to do with this fic was tell the other side, after things haven't worked out. 
> 
> Way back when I was telling my wife the idea, she just kept telling me that it was ambitious in that way that I took to mean she wasn't sure it could be done, but I still wanted to try. 
> 
> I hope I did it well enough. I hope you like it.
> 
> I hope it makes you feel _something_ , anything, because isn't that what it's all for?
> 
> * * *
> 
>  **But What About Love?** \- a playlist for the fic by [babyashleym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyashleym). 
> 
> From Ashley: _I fell in love with the tumultuous aspect of Frank and Gerard's relationship in this fic. The back and forth between timelines was so jarring, it only added to the effect. I tried to capture that in this mix: their teenage young love that was so great a painting of them should be hanging in "The Louvre." But, also the biting anger that Frank is still holding onto, after them ending. Hopefully, I did justice to both of these characters, and their explosive romance. (Of course, with a dash of heartbreak.)_
> 
> [Download](https://goo.gl/sxYXnS) • [Spotify](https://goo.gl/mjPf9W)

### Part One - Frank

Frank took one look at the envelope and groaned. When he had been budgeting this month, he had completely forgotten about the bill that the receptionist from the veterinarian's office had promised to send in the mail. For once, he had thought he might make it through without paying something late, or not at all, but of course, that wasn’t the way his luck worked.

When he had been in the city for six months, he had wandered into a pet store. He had been planning on potentially purchasing some fish, just to have something to take care of. Frank would never admit it to anyone, not even himself except in his darkest moments, but the city was lonely. Unfortunately for him, the store was hosting an adoption event for the local animal shelter, and amidst all the adorable puppies and dogs that were so cute they were sure to be adopted, there she’d been. Quietly curled in the corner, she was so poorly groomed that she barely even looked like a dog, but when Frank had held his hand out to her, she slowly resumed dog shape like she was a creaky old Transformer. Her coat was overgrown, she didn’t seem to have many actual characteristics of a dog except for the tail, yet her paperwork named her ‘Queen Elizabark’ in some sort of cruel attempt to keep anyone from adopting her ever, and Frank was in love with her.

He hadn’t been able to resist, not even with the obstacles that were her adoption fee and the pet deposit and the pet rent he had to pay in addition to his regular rent upon adopting her. ‘Pet-friendly apartment,’ his ass. The place was a dump and the size of a closet — a closet-sized trash heap that they somehow managed to pawn off as a livable area, and then demanded still more money for bringing a companion into the space just so Frank didn’t want to kill himself whenever he came back to the apartment. Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabark of Dogdom, had actually tried to improve the space when she first moved in, though Frank was certain that the landlord wouldn’t be impressed with her intense hatred of the hideous wallpaper, even if she had done him a favor by tearing a good chunk of it down.

He sighed and looked down at the dog who had managed to end up sick almost as much as he had since he’d adopted her, but he couldn’t even be mad, not when she excitedly wagged her tail as soon as she noticed she had his attention. She was just a dog, he knew that, but he felt so happy when Liza did that thing where she shook her tail so hard she fell over. It made his life better than if he didn’t have a dog, sick or not.

“Well, Liza, looks like your chocolate binge is finally coming back to haunt us.” Liza didn’t answer, just wagged her tail harder. “I bet you’d do it all over again, wouldn’t you, little shit?” Frank sighed again and shook his head. “Figures I would end up adopting the dog version of myself.”

Tucking the mail underneath his arm, he adjusted his backpack and then went up the stairs at the back of the lobby, Liza making little grunting noises as she jumped each step one at a time. Eventually the stairs would get to be too much for her, but she was still trucking along for now, and that’s what mattered. He reached his apartment and unlocked the door, reaching down to unclip Liza’s leash after he pushed it open. The door didn’t even latch right when the deadbolt wasn’t thrown, which naturally meant that Frank always kept it locked whether he was there or not. He locked it as soon as he was past the threshold, and by the time he turned around, Liza had already peed on the tile of the kitchen.

“Liza, no! We were literally just outside.” She seemed to be taken aback by his harsh tone, her tail falling between her legs, and he sighed, his voice softening. “You just peed. I don’t understand you.” He moved into the kitchen to clean it up immediately. Just because the apartment was a dump didn’t mean he had to compound the unpleasantness of living there by leaving things a mess. There wasn’t a lot to clean up, and he wondered if maybe she was getting bladder problems. He wouldn’t put it out of the question, not with their luck. Tonight though, he just couldn’t deal with it.

At work, there had been a whole fiasco with a missing package that Frank had sworn was never handed off to him. The asshole executive said he’d given it to Frank though, and he made his assistant come down to the mail room twice to go through the stack of outgoing packages, and then followed that up by calling and screaming at Frank for ten minutes, just for good measure. Threats against Frank’s job had been made; even though the exec wasn’t Frank’s boss, he was more important at the company, and apparently that kind of thing mattered. Frank was pretty sure his boss would never listen to some suit who thought it was okay to call and scream at people, but then again, he didn’t really know what James might do. He was so off the wall sometimes that he might give Frank a suspension thinking he needed a vacation. Eventually, the package had been located in the exec’s office, nowhere near Frank, exactly like he had said. There had been no apology, of course, not even from the exec’s assistant. That would have been a level of kindness that no one at Frank’s company seemed to possess.

It wasn’t like he hated his job, it just… wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted was coworkers that cared about him, a friendly atmosphere to work in, people all aiming for the same goal. If it was creative and got him closer to the music scene, then those were just perks. Frank had always loved music, but this job working the mail room for a property management corporation had nothing to do with why he’d come to New York. His father had encouraged him to stick with it though, because surely someone had connections, but he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Frank dumped his phone, wallet, and keys on the counter, and then moved into his room, quickly removing his long-sleeve button-up and tie. There was only so much he could do about all of his tattoos, but while the dress code didn’t actually say he couldn’t have them, people at work tended to look at him strangely if he let more than just the ones on his hands and wrists show. He only unbuttoned his sleeves and pushed them up when he had to lug large packages out to the delivery trucks. Luckily the mail room was in the basement of the building, and it was cooler than the offices on the upper floors. Still, his self-imposed uniform made walking to his apartment before the sun had gone down a living hell, and he got out of it as quickly as he could, changing into some shorts and an undershirt.

He still couldn’t believe he was here, that he’d gone from working at an independent record store with his friends in his hometown to living in the big city and working for some corporation that wasn’t actually pushing him anywhere closer to his career goals. He hadn’t even found a new band to play with, though he knew that would take time. He still missed it, still missed the rush that performing on stage gave him, still missed working with people towards making art even if they weren’t getting paid for it. Especially if they weren’t getting paid for it. But he’d left for a reason, and he couldn’t sit around thinking about it. He hadn’t let himself do that in the entire year that he’d been in the city.

Walking into the combination kitchen/dining room/living room, Frank went for the fridge and pulled out a beer. He was almost out, which meant that he’d have to go to the store soon, something that never got any easier no matter how long he lived in the city. He couldn’t believe how much more difficult shopping was when he walked everywhere, but it kept him active, and there wasn’t really a point to having a car here when everything was within walking distance. He would have to go after he brought Liza back from daycare tomorrow. Doggy daycare was another expense he hadn’t really anticipated, but leaving her in the apartment by herself all day while he was at work felt cruel, so he paid for it willingly, even if the one he took her to was run by this tiny Cuban lady who just grunted at Frank when he picked up and dropped off his dog. Liza seemed to like her, and that was what mattered.

He opened the beer and poked around the fridge for something to make for dinner, finding little more than some leftover pizza that he knew would make him sick. He really should stop ordering it, but it was so easy with a pizza place right on his block. It wasn’t Jersey pizza, but it wasn’t terrible, even if it did make him sick. All pizza made him sick, but sometimes he got off of work and really didn’t want to cook. Tonight, though, he felt okay. He pulled out a package of veggie ravioli and a half-empty jar of pasta sauce, and then started boiling some water on his tiny two-burner stovetop. While he waited, he sipped his beer and considered turning on the AC. He couldn’t really afford it, and it wasn’t terribly hot in the apartment, despite the way that Liza seemed to have melted, her tongue sticking out and lolling to the floor. Frank couldn’t help but snort at the sight, picking up his phone and taking a picture to send to his mom later. She would get a kick out of it, definitely. Mikey would too, probably, even though he insisted that Liza was “disgusting” and “probably not even a dog.” He always slept on the couch when he came to visit, and he always cuddled Liza when he did, so he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Frank went about cooking his dinner, boiling the pasta in one pot and heating what was left of the sauce on the other. It wasn’t gourmet, and his grandmother would probably kick his ass if she knew he was using store-bought sauce and not even seasoning it. At that thought, he reached up into the cabinet and grabbed for the garlic salt, dumping in a hefty amount before capping it and putting it back. He blew a kiss to the ceiling and then laughed to himself as he stirred it in. His grandmother’s spirit probably had better things to do than watch Frank cook a cheap ass meal, but he wasn’t taking chances.

When everything was done, he turned both burners off and strained the pasta into the empty sink, scooping it into a bowl and spooning some sauce over the top. Setting it on the counter to cool for a minute, he refilled Liza’s bowl, laughing aloud as she struggled to get traction on the floor in her eagerness to get to her food. At least her appetite was fine. His own dinner was still steaming when he picked it up, and he headed to the couch, his mostly-full beer still in his hand. His television remote wasn’t working — it probably just needed new batteries, but he hadn’t gotten around to finding replacements yet — so he made sure to turn it on before he sat down. It was still on AMC from when he’d last watched it, and some grainy horror movie was playing. He hadn’t seen it before, but the plot was pretty easy to catch onto, so he sat there, watching it and barely paying attention to the dinner he was eating. He almost burned his tongue, except that he wasn’t that into the movie, and caught himself before he stuck the forkful of pasta into his mouth. Blowing on it, he vaguely noticed that Liza had already finished her dinner and came back to toss herself dramatically onto the rug in front of the couch.

Frank finished his pasta right as someone was being violently murdered on screen, and he wondered if maybe they’d used pasta sauce for the blood. It was kind of the same color as blood, but he thought he remembered that the colors were different when things were filmed in black and white, because all that mattered was the tone. Gerard probably told him that. Frank frowned at the thought, not liking that he was thinking about him. It had been a year after all, and he’d resisted all of the urges to answer his calls or texts or emails or instant messages. It was better for them both if Frank didn’t give him false hope by letting him stay in contact, even if Gerard hadn’t exactly given up in the entire time Frank had been ignoring him. It was almost like clockwork — every few days, he’d get a message of some kind from Gerard, almost like he was still thinking of him. That was impossible, though. Why would he keep hanging on like that to someone who obviously didn’t want to be hung onto?

It was weird though. Now that he thought about it, Frank didn’t think he’d gotten a message from Gerard in days, maybe even weeks. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a text. Setting his empty bowl on the coffee table, he went to get his phone from the counter. It was just after eight, and he’d gotten a message from Ray about an upcoming show next month that he thought Frank might want to meet up for. He ignored it for the moment and then searched through his messages, finding that his last one from Gerard had been three weeks ago. It was a silly message, the kind of thing that usually made Frank’s chest hurt if he thought about it too long.

_[ text to Frank; 8:03 PM ]: I just watched this movie and it made me think of that time we went to that old theater and the sound wasn’t working so we just made up our own dialogue. do you remember? I miss you. I love you. xo g_

Frank hadn’t answered; he never did, but Gerard never gave up, at least not until now. He checked through his missed calls and voicemails, and there was nothing more recent than that. Even his emails didn’t show anything from Gerard within the last few weeks.

Frank felt strangely disappointed, like he’d been expecting Gerard to continue messaging him for the rest of forever. It was unfair, especially considering that he was determined not to respond, ever, but it still felt like he’d been let down. He resisted the urge to search further, to look up what Gerard had been doing, if he’d posted any updates about his life. He hadn’t caved in the entire time since he’d moved away, no matter how many times Gerard sent him messages asking him to listen to a specific song or read a blog post. Frank knew it would hurt too much.

Shrugging off the feeling, he went back to the couch, scooping Liza up along the way. As he finished watching the movie, he texted Ray back and told him he would definitely be down, and then sent the picture he’d taken of Liza to his mom and Mikey. It was too late for his mom to answer, but Mikey responded immediately asking if dogs normally had tongues that long, which Frank quickly answered with a middle finger emoji, and then another message from Ray came in that said he’d get the drinks if Frank bought the tickets, which he agreed to. It would be tight, but he could make it work if he paid his cellphone bill a few days late. He’d had to do that few times, and they’d never shut his service off, though he supposed it was only a matter of time before they got sick of that.

After the movie, Frank watched whatever came on next, even if he was only vaguely paying attention. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the fact that Gerard hadn’t texted him, even if he was determined not to wallow about it. That was normal, it was part of moving on. Looking at the date on his phone, he realized that it had been exactly a year since he’d left, and Gerard was well within his rights to stop messaging Frank after that long. It was probably long overdue, if he was completely honest with himself.

Liza kept yawning, and it wasn’t until the second movie ended that he realized it was past the time he usually went to bed. He turned off the television and picked her up again, setting her in her bed next to his own. He was about to crawl into bed when he realized that he hadn’t prepared coffee for the next morning, and as it was, he was usually running late. If he didn’t do it now, he likely wouldn’t do it, so he headed back into the kitchen and set up the pot to brew right before he woke up. As he filled the pot, he realized that the inside of his cheek was raw, and he instantly started to worry at it with his tongue. He must have chewed at it while he was watching the movie earlier, though he couldn’t even remember the plot at this point. It was a bad habit he thought he’d broken.

When Frank got back into bed, it was just after midnight. He laid there staring at the ceiling, listening to the traffic outside and the sound of Liza snoring from her doggy bed. Even when he was alone with only himself and his thoughts, he didn’t usually let himself think about the past, about everything he missed. It did no good to ignore his regrets in the light of day just to overthink them at night, because then it just undid all of his energy to move past them. Frank was convinced that if he just tried hard enough, if he just looked towards the bright side of this situation, eventually he wouldn’t have any regrets at all. If that wasn’t the case, hopefully he’d have enough things he was proud of to overshadow the regrets. But he was tired, and every so often, he couldn’t help himself. That night, he fell asleep clinging to his pillow, his thoughts full of when he didn’t used to sleep alone.

### Part Two - Gerard

The first time he saw Frank, he looked right over the top of his head. Gerard wasn’t immensely tall, but the stool he was sitting on gave him a few extra inches and the guy standing on the other side of the counter was short. He didn’t mean to be rude, he was just so engrossed in the comics he was researching on the computer that also served as a register that he assumed the person was Ray. He was mistaken. The guy in front of him was about a foot shorter than Ray, which is why Gerard had to drop his gaze down and smile apologetically. His smile froze as he met wide green eyes staring back at him.

Gerard couldn’t breathe, and the guy seemed completely not thrown off by it, aside from the single raised eyebrow.

“Uh… h-hi. Are you already? I mean, all ready. Are you all ready?”

To the guy’s credit, he didn’t give Gerard much of a weird look then either. He just grinned and shook his head. “Oh, no, I’m not buying anything. I’m actually looking for Ray.”

Gerard nodded, his cheeks warm even if the guy didn’t seem to care that he had completely unsettled him with one look. He was about to call for Ray when he came out of the back room as if summoned, his hair a curly triangle hanging down to his shoulders, a crate full of used vinyls in his arms. He stopped when he realized he was being stared at, but it only took a second for recognition to bloom on his face in a typical Ray smile.

“Frank _fucking_ Iero.”

When Gerard glanced at the guy’s— no, Frank’s face, his smile had gotten impossibly brighter. Gerard watched as Ray moved around the counter and the two hugged, apparently old friends, judging from the way they immediately started to catch up. Gerard wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but they were standing right in front of him, and it was kind of hard not to. Besides, he really wanted to know who ‘Frank fucking Iero’ thought he was, coming in and completely disrupting Gerard’s day with his massive eyes and his incredible smile. He didn’t get an answer to that question because a customer came up and ruined everything with their need to get rung up, causing Ray and Frank to get out of the way by heading to the back room again. As Gerard started scanning the customer’s items, he watched Frank turn and look back at him, that ridiculous smile still stretching across his face as he waved, and Gerard mentally cursed at himself.

* * *

Later that week, Gerard and Ray stood in silence at the counter, sorting through the stacks of used vinyls that had been exchanged for store credit that morning. Gerard kept looking at Ray, wanting to ask about his friend, but not wanting to be a creep either. Ray, in typical Ray fashion, didn’t seem to be catching onto Gerard’s not so subtle glances, which meant that Gerard would have to work up the nerve to actually ask. Still, he waited until the stacks were low enough that they were practically done before he spoke up.

“So, uh. The other day.”

“Hmm?” Ray’s face was blank as he turned to Gerard, holding some pop album that would probably live out the rest of its life on the shelves of the record store. It seemed to take him a moment to realize Gerard hadn’t actually given him enough detail for him to respond to, and his eyebrows rose in confusion. “Uh, was there a second part to that sentence?”

“Oh,” Gerard dropped his own gaze to his own stack, lining up the edges with each other. “Yeah, I mean. That guy that came in the other day was a friend of yours, huh?”

“That guy?” Ray looked even more confused, and then it dawned on him and he grinned. “Oh, you mean Frank. Yeah, Frank and I go way back. His mom paid me to teach him how to play guitar when I was like… nineteen or something? And he was this fifteen year old, tiny, little punk-ass. Still is, apparently.” He was laughing, obviously meaning the insult affectionately.

“Oh.” Gerard calculated it in his mind, but he sucked at math and birthdays made things difficult, but that put Frank at about twenty. He was probably wrong, because Frank definitely looked younger than twenty.

“He just came back from college and wanted to see if I could get him a job.”

“Oh?” That piqued Gerard’s interest, and Ray seemed to sense that from the tone in his voice, but he completely misread why.

“‘Oh?’ Dude, he’s not gonna take your hours or something, and I still have to talk to my parents about it.”

“My hours? No, I’m not worried about that.” He didn’t wait for Ray to ask what he was worried about and Gerard elaborated before he could figure it out on his own. “It would be nice to see someone that wasn’t you all the time.”

“Man, fuck off.” Ray smiled and shook his head, his frizzy hair swinging. “Seriously, he’s got some punk tastes, and I think we’ve been doing well enough to hire a third person.” Gerard stopped focusing as Ray began to babble on about running the numbers before talking to his parents, who owned the record shop but had pretty much handed off all of the management duties to Ray. They didn’t even live in Jersey anymore — last month, they’d done the typical retiree thing and moved to Florida. Ray was the only one of their sons that had wanted to take over the family business; the other two had veered off the family path and achieved their dreams of becoming firefighters.

Gerard nodded as Ray kept talking, his stack growing smaller as he kept sorting them all. When he was done, he picked them up and took them to the back, setting them in the pile of vinyls to be tested before selling them. His mind was whirring. If Frank came to work with them, he would have to confront the stupid crush he’d developed over the course of an entire minute, and obviously get over it. Frank probably wasn’t that cool anyways, as Gerard would inevitably find out the longer they worked together.

* * *

Unfortunately for Gerard and his crush, Frank _was_ that cool. He had more tattoos than anyone who looked that young should have, but they all blended together despite the seemingly haphazard styles. He was clumsy, but never in a bad way, which Gerard found endearing. As many times as Frank fell over, he never managed to take anything down except himself, and maybe whoever or whatever he was standing next to in his attempt to stop himself. In his first week at the record shop, he managed to get bruises on both knees from tripping over shelves, a splinter in his hand from the counter (which Gerard had never done even though he had worked there for two years), as well as a busted lip from falling off a step stool. Ray revoked his step stool privileges after that, much to Gerard’s relief.

What made everything worse was that Frank was fucking hilarious. Even after his spill, he looked at Gerard with a grin full of blood and said, “This is what I get for trying to be tall. Gravity is a spiteful bitch.”

Maybe it wasn’t that funny, because Ray just shook his head as he handed Frank a wet towel and patted him down to make sure nothing was broken, but Gerard had to crouch behind the counter to get himself together, he was giggling that hard.

Gerard tried not to pay too much attention to Frank, especially given that Ray seemed to be onto him, somehow. He had put too much trust into Ray’s usual oblivious nature, but every time Gerard laughed at something Frank did or said, Ray’s eyebrows shot up, which meant that Gerard just had to try harder not to give himself away. If Ray knew, then Frank definitely knew, and that was so embarrassing Gerard couldn’t even consider it.

Eventually, though, the two of them worked together without Ray being there. After Ray’s parents had moved, he had worked every day that the store was open, taking only Wednesdays off. Even Gerard only worked five days a week, except for during the holidays. Hiring Frank meant that, in theory, Ray could scale back his time at the store, at least by a day. A few weeks into Frank’s employment, Ray ran out of things to train Frank on. He had no more excuses and had to give in, though he made both Frank and Gerard promise not to burn the store down if he took another day off. It was a Monday, because Ray refused to take two consecutive days off, even though the store was closed on Wednesday. He still came in that morning, but left as soon as both of them arrived, leaving Gerard in charge.

It was a slow day, and it was noon before they got their first customer, which meant that they were pretty productive in the morning. Ray had left them a list of things to get done, and Gerard, who didn’t want it to the be the first and last time Ray Toro took a second day off, made sure they went through every item on the list. By the time they had both taken their lunches, there wasn’t much left to do, which of course, led to the inevitable fucking around. They were taking turns crumpling up fliers and tossing them into the wastebasket at the other end of the counter, Frank keeping a tally of their scores.

“So, what do you do for fun?” Gerard could only keep up his uninterested act for so long. He watched Frank toss a tiny paper ball at the trash can, missing by a foot.

“You’re looking at it.”

“Shut up.” Gerard was grinning, stupidly, and it took him a few seconds to school his face into a less giddy expression.

“No, I’m serious. I am the reigning champion of paper ball.” He pronounced ‘paper ball’ like basketball, like it was all one word because it was an official sport. Gerard just snickered.

“Was the previous champion a toddler?”

“Hey! I resent that.” Frank’s smile was wide as he shook his head and shot another crumpled up flyer at the trash can, only missing by a few inches this time. “Seriously though, I like to fuck around on my guitar, play video games, listen to music, read comics. Normal loner nerd shit.”

“Comics? Which comics?” Gerard couldn’t help but be completely interested in that part of his answer, given the massive comic collection that he and Mikey had amassed at home.

“Uh, everything, really. Not Spider Man, though, he’s whiny as fuck.”

Gerard laughed. “I mean, yeah, I could see that. What else?”

He watched as Frank scratched his head, like he was trying to remember the ones he liked. Gerard felt a bit bad for pressing him about it, but not that bad. “Batman, for sure… Doom Patrol, definitely.”

“Dude, Doom Patrol is my favorite.”

“Really? You know, that doesn’t surprise me, actually — it’s fucking awesome.”

“Yeah, it is.” The conversation lulled as Gerard tried to figure out something more appropriate to say than what his brain was coming up with, which was pretty much just blatantly asking Frank if he wanted to come over after work and read comics. He was saved the embarrassment by the sound of the bells attached to the store door ringing, and both of them turned to find Ray. Gerard groaned as Ray immediately began making excuses about wanting to check on them to make sure everything was going alright, but Frank said it better than Gerard ever could.

“Dude, Ray, seriously, you’ve got control issues.”

* * *

“Hey.”

Frank’s voice startled him out of his daydream. He was sitting behind the store, and there weren’t normally any other people in the alley when Gerard took his cigarette breaks because whoever was working with him was usually manning the counter. This was Saturday, though, and all three of them worked on Saturdays, even with the new arrangement where each of them had two days off. Gerard only jumped a little, even though he recognized Frank’s voice.

“Oh, uh. Hi Frank.”

Gerard squinted as he looked up at Frank from the upside-down crate he was sitting on. Frank was standing between him and the sun at the end of the alley, but the late afternoon light was spilling around his silhouette like he was some sort of deity. Gerard’s pulse jumped before speeding up, and he took another drag from his cigarette, cursing his stupid traitor heart.

Frank didn’t even ask if it was okay if he joined Gerard — he just kicked over another crate and sat down next to him, pulling out his own cigarettes and lighting one. He took a long drag and then seemed to relax a bit, leaning back against the wall of the record shop. Gerard stared at him for a second, his eyes narrowed.

“Are you even old enough to be smoking?”

“Shut the fuck up, I’m almost twenty.” Frank kicked at Gerard’s foot with his toe, somehow managing not to fall off of his crate in the process, then let the smoke in his lungs slowly filter out as he spoke. “I pay my taxes, just like everyone else.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure that actually has nothing to do with whether or not you’re old enough to smoke.”

“Huh.” There was a long pause that Frank filled with drawing another breath from his cigarette. “Well, maybe it should.”

Gerard snorted. “I mean—”

Frank cut him off. “What are you doing tonight?”

“W-what?” He hadn’t been expecting that question, as innocuous as it was.

“Tonight.”

“Uh, probably nothing, wh—"

“There’s this show in town, tonight.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the torn knees of his jeans. His dark fringe was hanging in his eyes, but he was looking at Gerard from underneath stupidly dark lashes. “Come with me.”

It wasn’t a question so much as it was a demand, and Gerard just looked at him, his own cigarette hanging from his fingers, completely forgotten. Frank had fixed his gaze on him, and Gerard simultaneously felt hot and cold. He didn’t even have to think about the answer, he simply had to work up the nerve to say it without sounding like a total idiot.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Great! You off at seven?” The store closed at six thirty, which meant that everyone was off at seven, but Gerard didn’t bother saying that. He just nodded and watched Frank squish out the stub of his cigarette on the toe of his shoe before bouncing up off of the crate. “I’ll meet you out front. We can take your car.”

With that, Frank went back into the store, leaving Gerard wondering what the fuck had just happened. He hadn’t even found out what kind of show it was.

* * *

Gerard didn’t know where Frank had gone. He had followed him into the venue and promptly lost him in the opener’s crowd, before the real show had even started. There were so many people, and everything was dark, and the crowd was wild. The way everyone was moving and thrashing along to the music made Gerard feel like they were a physical manifestation of the music that the band was playing, and he didn’t mind it, even if he did hang towards the edge of the crowd. He was afraid that Frank had gone right into the center of it, but he couldn’t see him anymore, and he was terrified of heading further into the mayhem to look for him and getting taken out by a stray elbow. He kind of wished Mikey was with him.

Even though Gerard was alert, he was completely unprepared when he was tackled out of nowhere somewhere in the middle of the main set. Gerard reached out and caught him; it was dark, but not dark enough that he couldn’t tell that the person responsible for the collision was Frank. His skin underneath Gerard’s hands was slick with sweat, and he straightened up, grinning and yelling something that Gerard couldn’t make out.

“What?” Frank’s grin fell a bit, then his expression cleared as he realized the music was too loud. He stood up on his toes and leaned forward, his entire torso pressing against Gerard’s as he yelled over the music. “Been looking for you!”

“I’ve been right here!”

“Should’ve looked here first!” That made Gerard smile, and he felt Frank’s hand tighten on his shoulder. He pulled away and motioned for Gerard to follow, and Gerard couldn’t do anything but comply.

Frank led him to a quiet, dark hallway that smelled like piss. It was obviously the hallway to the bathrooms, but there was a door at the end marked ‘FIRE ESCAPE’. Frank walked right up and opened it before Gerard had a chance to warn him, but no alarm sounded. It was obviously not the first time Frank had done this because he turned around and flashed Gerard a cheeky smile before heading out the door. By the time Gerard made it outside after him, Frank was toeing over a rock to prop the door open so they wouldn’t get locked out.

“Do you have any smokes?” Frank’s voice sounded wrecked, like he’d been screaming along with the music, or just screaming in general. Gerard was willing to bet it was the latter because he’d never heard of this band, though it was possible that Frank was actually a fan. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out his slightly squished case of cigarettes, his lighter tucked inside. He handed one to Frank, then handed him the lighter too. In the movies, the man giving the cigarette to the lady always lit it for her, but Frank wasn’t a lady, as far as he knew, and Gerard was barely a man. By the time he shook his head and focused, Frank had already lit his smoke and was handing the lighter back so Gerard could light his own before putting the case away.

“How do you like them so far?”

“They’re good. Loud, but good.” Frank grinned at that, like his opinion of the band was directly proportional to how loud they played, which was probably the case. Before Frank could respond, Gerard hurried to continue, not wanting to be written off as boring or lame. “The singer is pretty good.”

“He’s okay.” Frank shrugged and flicked a bit of ash onto the ground and Gerard frowned at somehow picking the wrong opinion. “The guitarist is where the real talent is. I saw them once, back in Camden, and he was jumping all over the stage and crashing into his bandmates, all without missing a note.” He shrugged and took another drag from his cigarette. “I like to think I’ll be like that when I’m in a band that does actual shows and shit.”

“When? Not if?”

“Fuck no.” Frank turned to Gerard and grinned, his smile lighting up his entire face. His dark hair was sticking to his forehead in sweat-slicked curls, and Gerard wanted to push them back out of his face. “It’s definitely when. I’ve got dreams, and I’m gonna get there. I want to play in an actual band for awhile. We don’t have to make it big or anything, just big enough to have some fans, and to make connections. Then, when I’m done touring and living out of a van, I can get an actual career where I’m working with the music.”

Gerard exhaled, the smoke from his cigarette curling up into the air. Frank seemed completely determined he’d get there, while Gerard had no dreams and was still living with his parents. It was just another testament to how much cooler Frank was than Gerard. Something must have shown on his face because when he looked up from the pebble he was nudging around with his toe, Frank was frowning at him.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. It’s so fucking cool that you’re so determined, I just… I have no idea what I want to do with my life.”

Frank leaned over and nudged Gerard’s shoulder with his own. “I’ve wanted to be a musician since I was like… eight. Most people go through twenty different career options by the time they’re my age, right? I know you’re older than me or whatever, but that doesn’t matter. The Flaming Lips didn’t make “She Don’t Use Jelly” until the lead singer was like thirty-something. It’s not like you’re fucking running out of time.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Gerard shook his head. “Maybe I’ll just end up working in Ray’s record shop for the rest of my life.”

“Would that suck so badly? Like, not for me, but if you don't know what you want to do. It’s music, and it pays the bills.” He took a long inhale of his cigarette and then dropped it to the ground, crushing the butt with his toe. “And, like I said, you’ve got time.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

“I am.” Frank gave this confident grin, letting out the rest of his smoke, and Gerard shook his head again, unable to keep a twin smile off of his face. “Trust me.”

A loud cheer from the crowd poured out of the opening in the door, and both of them turned to look.

“Maybe we should get back inside,” Gerard started, hurriedly inhaling what was left of his cigarette before dropping it onto the ground and grinding it out with his shoe. He was already turning to head back through the propped open door when Frank grabbed his wrist.

“Wait.”

Gerard looked back at him, confused, but Frank just tugged and then Gerard was completely in his space. For a second he was afraid of knocking Frank over, but now that he was pressed against him, Gerard realized that Frank was a lot more solid than he had given him credit for.

“Um…” Gerard started, but Frank was standing up on his toes. Gerard didn’t know what was happening, and even if he did he couldn’t believe that Frank would willingly do this when they didn’t even really know each other, but then Frank was kissing him. It was soft and tentative, and Gerard’s eyes were open because he hadn’t expected it. He realized this was odd and closed his eyes, leaning slightly into the kiss, and that seemed to be what Frank was waiting for.

Before Gerard could protest, Frank was backing him up, palms and fingers pressing into either side of his face, and pushing him against the wall of the venue, hard brick meeting Gerard’s back as Frank leaned against his front. Frank’s mouth was still pressed against his own, and Gerard couldn’t breathe, but he was also pretty sure he no longer cared. He had no idea what had possessed Frank to do this, but he also didn’t give a shit. Frank tasted like smoke and spit, and Gerard knew that because at some point he had opened his mouth to let Frank’s tongue slip between his lips, because Frank was _kissing_ him.

He had no idea how long they stood there, kissing, pressing against each other, but it couldn’t have been that long because when Frank pulled away for air, Gerard could still hear the band playing. Judging from the way the crowd was screaming, it was probably their last song, but Gerard didn’t care about the show anymore. Frank was warm and still slightly sweaty from his trip through the crowd, but he was trying to catch his breath and looking up at Gerard, his mouth red and wet. Gerard instantly wanted to kiss him again.

“I have wanted to do that for days,” Frank said, grinning widely.

Gerard couldn’t look away, and rather than be put off by it, Frank seemed to be into it, his own gaze sliding down from Gerard’s eyes to his mouth and then back up again.

“I think the show is over.” Gerard felt a wave of panic at the thought of letting Frank go home, of driving him back to the store and that being the end of it, the end of tonight. “Do you maybe want to go get some food or—"

“Yes.” Frank’s reply was breathy and instant, and he seemed slightly chagrined by his own earnestness. “Yeah, that sounds… yeah.”

Gerard nodded, smiling. “Yeah. Okay.” He reached out for Frank but he was already leaning up to kiss Gerard again, a quick one this time, and then he was pulling away and dragging him back through the venue and out to his car.

### Part Three - Frank

The package landed right next to Frank’s head, startling him out of the half-dozing state he was in.

“The fuck?”

He blinked up at Dewees, his eyes bleary from the amount of sleep he hadn’t gotten. He had tossed and turned all night, finally giving up somewhere around sunrise, and the three cups of coffee he’d had since then weren’t really helping.

“Wake the fuck up, Iero. We’ve got labels to print and stick. Marketing just sent down a shit ton of these little fliers and we get the joy of mailing them out.” Frank was already opening the box, groaning at the sheer amount of cardstock mailers stacked inside.

“Dude there’s gotta be a thousand of these.”

“Don’t I know it. That blonde chick up at the desk there said she emailed you the spreadsheet of addresses they’d like them sent to, so just do your little mail merge-y magic, and we’ll be on our way.”

Somehow Frank knew that when Dewees said ‘we’ he really meant Frank, and there was nothing magic about printing a thousand address labels before running all the cards through the postage. Still, it was a job, and it paid the bills (mostly), and it wasn’t actually terrible so much as it was mind-numbingly boring. He sighed and turned to the computer, waking it up from screen saving mode with a shake of the mouse. True to the marketing staff member’s word, the email was sitting in his inbox, and Frank quickly downloaded the list and got to work.

The absolute worst part about the mail room job wasn’t the way everyone in the company expected him to do all their grunt work. It was that, while doing the mindless grunt work, his thoughts were free to wander. Sometimes he cranked Black Flag as loud as he dared to, but even that wasn’t helping today. His thoughts kept spinning back to Gerard, and no matter how much Frank tried to stop himself, he couldn’t keep from wondering how he was doing.

It wasn’t like Gerard to not call for so long, or at least text him. He imagined things that could have happened, terrible thing that would keep Gerard from contacting him, even if he wanted to. He was in the middle of picturing Gerard in some kind of coma, his family all crying at his bedside, when he ran out of address labels and had to dig around through the supply drawers to find more sheets to stuff into the printer.

It was a good thing that thought train had been headed off at the pass by the distraction because it was one-hundred percent ridiculous. If something serious had happened to Gerard, Mikey or Ray would have told him, no matter how much they tried to stay out of the breakup that they only referred to as “ _The Hindenburg of Frank’s Romantic Life_ ” or just “ _The Hindenburg_ ” when they were short on time. It was clear where they both stood on the matter, even if they refused to officially take sides. He had truly been surprised at that, as he had assumed Mikey would write him off after the stunt he pulled. But Mikey, true to form, just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn’t actually have that many friends to lose, even if he was much less warm to Frank after everything settled.

His phone buzzed in his pocket as he was feeding mailers through the postage machine, one at a time. He had set up a tub at the other end so that everything dropped into it instead of falling to the counter, which was good, considering that he completely forgot what he was doing as he pulled out his phone. Frank had been focusing so much on Gerard not messaging him that he’d probably manifested it, he was certain that’s what the notification was, except it wasn’t. It was an alert from some stupid game his mom was practically addicted to playing, and seeing it made his mood even worse. He gave up all pretenses of not being grumpy then, shoving the rest of the mailers into the feeder so carelessly that it was no surprise when he jammed it and ended up with a nasty paper cut for his troubles. Frank spent the rest of his shift sucking angrily at his thumb, serving Dewees a glare when he came by to pick up the bucket of addressed and stamped mailers.

Picking up Liza didn’t make his mood any better, even though he was very conscious of not taking it out on her. He didn’t hurry to the apartment, though, making sure she got a good walk in, and he stopped at their favorite food stand to buy them both hot dogs, a veggie dog for Frank with all the fixings and a plain beef dog, no bun, for Liza. Unsurprisingly, she still went for her food bowl when they got to the apartment, Frank’s insistence that she had already had her dinner falling on deaf ears (probably literally, or close to). He eventually gave into her whines and mentally prepared himself to be lectured about her weight again the next time he took her into the vet.

With no dinner to cook and nothing he had to do, Frank was at a loss. He tried to turn the television on again but nothing caught his interest, not even the horror movies that had held his attention the night before. The same thing happened with the book he tried to pick up, something that he’d grabbed at the store because it had caught his eye, but it was impossible to read something he wasn’t presently interested in. Frank eventually gave up on that after the third time trying to read the first page, and he tossed it to the coffee table, the noise startling Liza out of her sleep. Not deaf, then. He murmured an apology, leaning over and petting her to soothe her back into sleep, which took no time at all. With how exhausted he felt, he wished he could just go to sleep that easily, but even when he laid on the couch and closed his eyes, it just wasn’t happening, probably on account of it still being light out. He almost wished that he hadn’t bought hot dogs just so he would have had something to do.

Eventually he also gave up on the sleeping attempt, sitting up and pulling out his phone. He wasn’t a big texter; he never really had been, mostly just using texts to pass information about meeting up with his friends or the occasional funny picture. Sometimes, if nothing was going on and no one was coming to visit, he would go weeks without texting anyone. If he texted his mom or either Ray or Mikey two days in a row, it would instantly set off a red flag, and that was unthinkable. He found himself scrolling through his social media feeds, something he only did when he was so completely bored that he could actually pay attention to the lives of the people around him. That could be classified as a personal failing, he knew, except that he much preferred to catch up with the people he cared about in real life, when he saw them. He wasn’t big on the whole announcing his every move and mood to the world anyways.

Some girl from high school he hadn’t even realized he was friends with was getting married, someone else was having a baby, and some guy he had met during his two years at Rutgers was very upset about the commuting traffic, which just made Frank roll his eyes. He and Gerard had once had a discussion about how updating your status was basically screaming into the abyss and hoping that someone else was bored enough with their own life to comment or like the screaming.

They had been sitting in Gerard’s bed one morning, holding cups of coffee with their legs tangled together, and Frank had snickered after reading someone’s status complaining that they were stuck at an airport. Gerard, who had thoughts on everything and could talk about anything for days and days, had gone on with minimal input from Frank about how ‘that’s just shit that happens to everyone’ and ‘of course people are going to sympathize, why would you post that unless you wanted attention.’ He eventually told Frank that it was ‘like-fishing’ and seemed pretty pleased with that one, but Frank had just grinned and shook his head. Gerard had continued until he’d gestured so much that his coffee had spilled all over his shirt, and Frank had immediately taken it upon himself to remove it (along with the rest of Gerard’s clothes) before it burned him, ignoring Gerard’s protests that the coffee wasn’t even hot anymore.

The memory, like most with Gerard, was a good one, but that was Frank’s doing. He hadn’t stuck around long enough for there to be bad ones, but he also didn’t let himself dwell on the good ones. Maybe someday, when both of them had moved on and there was no way that Frank remembering everything would cause pain for either of them. This was the most he had thought about Gerard in weeks, months even, and he had gotten very good at redirecting his thoughts in the last year.

He stood up, putting his phone down before he could do something stupid, and went to the kitchen to get a beer, opening the fridge and finding it mostly empty. He had completely forgotten about his plan to go to the grocery store and looked at the clock. There was enough time, if he hurried, and Liza was down for the count, snoring away on the rug next to the couch. He grabbed his wallet and his keys, completely forgetting about his phone until he was already on the sidewalk outside. He wouldn’t be gone for very long, and the chances of there being an emergency while he was out were slim, so it wasn’t worth going back up for it. Besides, he thought as he walked past an alley with some shady people hanging out at the edge of the shadows, it was one less thing he’d have to replace if he got mugged. His mother, who was constantly talking about the dangers of living and breathing in the city instead of commuting from somewhere safer, would have smacked him for that bit of dark humor.

The trek to the grocery store and back was thankfully uneventful. Frank didn’t even drop anything on the return trip, which was new and different for him. When he got back to his apartment, Liza was still snoring in the same place he’d left her, apparently not even aware that he had gone somewhere. He shook his head and put his bags on the counter, unpacking the stuff he’d bought at the store; some crackers, a loaf of bread, more pasta, but most importantly a case of beer. If he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t focus on anything to entertain himself, he could at least get drunk. Maybe then he’d pass out.

Four beers and half of the box of crackers later, Frank found himself laying across the couch. He was just on the right side of tipsy, where his head felt all floaty, but he wasn’t so drunk that he felt queasy. He wasn’t hungry anymore, so he pulled his computer into his lap, lifting the screen and pressing the power button. He half-remembered Gerard telling him something about electronics and sperm count, but he didn’t think that would be relevant any time soon, if ever. The way Frank’s life was going, he didn’t think he would ever have kids, if he even wanted them. Still, he reached for one of the throw pillows his mom had insisted he get despite his protests that a closet was a closet no matter what it was decorated with.

Once his laptop had finished booting up, he opened the browser, his fingers tapping over the keys without really pressing down, trying to remember exactly what he had needed the damn thing for. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back onto the arm of the couch, trying to focus. Maybe he had picked it up to look at porn, but that couldn’t be right — he didn’t feel turned on at all.

For some reason, his thoughts circled back towards Gerard, and he wasn’t sober enough to think of something, anything, else. Before he could stop himself, he was typing the address to the social media site he thought Gerard updated the most, and navigated to his profile. He hadn’t posted anything in weeks, about as long as it had been since Frank had heard from him, but it showed that he had been active, liking things and commenting on other people’s posts. Frank scrolled down to the last post Gerard had made, something about a new job. That was good, it was good that Gerard wasn’t just sitting around at the record shop still. The list of people congratulating him and liking the post were massive, and he wondered if maybe they’d been wrong about the whole screaming into the void thing. There was nothing wrong about sharing parts of your lives with the people who mattered.

He scrolled up to the top of the page again, finding Gerard’s profile picture. It was of him at a table, head resting on his palm with a pencil in his other hand, and it almost looked staged, like whoever taking it had told him to pretend he was drawing. Frank knew it wasn’t — Gerard was sticking the tip of his tongue out between his lips like he always did when he was concentrating. He wondered who had taken it, who had convinced him that it was a good picture. Gerard had always been shy about shit like that, preferring to make his display pictures ones of himself with other people or of artsy pictures he’d taken. The last time he had looked at Gerard’s profile, his picture had been the same one of him and Frank that had been up for months. When Frank clicked on Gerard’s picture to see if it was still in his profile picture album, he couldn’t even click through it because they weren’t friends. That had been Frank’s doing — he’d unfriended Gerard on every site he could think of before he had even left Jersey.

Frank shook his head, ignoring the way it felt like the motion made his brain swim. It was just like Gerard to leave his status updates public but not his pictures. He was moving to close the page when he realized he hadn’t actually seen any of Gerard’s statuses since things had changed. That was the wrong way to phrase it — Frank had been the one to change everything, and saying it like that took his agency out of it. He had been the one to leave, the one to break-up with Gerard out of nowhere after a year of being together. Frank was suddenly struck with a wave of self-destruction so strong that he couldn’t resist. He scrolled down Gerard’s page until it gave him the option to navigate to a month and a year of his choosing, and then he selected the month he’d left, over a year ago.

It took Frank hours to read through everything, from the end of things being fine to the change in relationship status, Gerard fielding all the questions with thoroughly diplomatic answers that he had no obligation to give. If he and Gerard had been speaking, if Frank had been answering his calls and texts, he would have told Gerard that he didn’t owe explanations to anyone. Frank, who had avoided all social media like the plague for a solid two months after moving to the city, never dealt with any of that; he’d simply cleared all his notifications from the months he’d missed and changed his information before ignoring it again.

He read all of the updates Gerard had made, from the vague ones insisting that eventually he’d get over all the things that were bringing him down to the ones where it seemed like he had lost hope, where he was clearly having a bad time. Each and every time he got to one of those posts, Frank felt a rush of guilt, and would instinctively start to push the feeling away before his drunk and soft side insisted that he suffer through it. As he read through them, the sad posts got fewer and farther between, but they were still there, each post just as painful to Frank as the previous one. By the time Frank got to the one year mark, he felt horrible enough that he had started to cry (though the fifth and sixth beers he’d gone through probably had not helped his emotional stability).

Eventually he made it to the most recent post again, the one about the new job, and he shut his computer, almost dumping the thing on the ground in his attempt to put it back on the coffee table. His cheeks felt wet, and he couldn’t figure out just how long he had been crying. He wiped at them over and over again, but they didn’t get any drier, and he thought maybe he was still crying. Reaching for his phone, he flicked through the notifications, not finding anything worth responding to, and immediately navigated to the text conversation with Gerard. That was much of the same as the statuses — Frank had obviously received the text messages, but he had done his best not to read them.

Liza was still snoring, and he leaned over to pick her up, shushing her when she gave a surprise yelp at being lifted while she was asleep. He laid down on the couch, curling up around her warm furry self and holding her tightly to his chest, like she was a life preserver and he was drowning. It felt a bit like that, if he was being honest and completely dramatic, as he was prone to be when drunk. His phone was still in his hand, and he did the same thing he’d done with the status updates, scrolling all the way up to the texts from when he’d left and tried to read them all. He made it as far down as his own birthday before he fell asleep, clutching his dog and his phone.

### Part Four - Gerard

Frank twitched and Gerard gave an exasperated sigh, his second in as many minutes.

“Sit still.”

Frank twitched again, obviously not listening, and Gerard groaned, pulling the paintbrush away.

“Frank, sit _still_.”

“I can’t sit still, fucker. It tickles.” Like he was trying to prove a point, he reached up and jabbed his fingertips into Gerard’s ribcage, making Gerard squirm. The end result was the paintbrush waving wildly around and catching in Frank’s hair, leaving a dab of red paint in some of the longer strands at the back of his head.

“Stop, stop, you made me get paint in your hair.” Gerard reached up to wipe it off with his fingertips, tilting his head to the side as he realized that the action didn’t really get the paint out so much as blended it in more. “You know, that kind of looks cool.”

Frank wiggled in Gerard’s lap, trying to turn around and look, even though he obviously couldn’t see the hair at the back of his head. “Fuck off, you’re not painting my hair.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Gerard protested, already dropping the brush away from Frank’s head.

“You were definitely considering it, though.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Gerard cringed at the guilt in his voice because he absolutely had been. He sighed again as Frank giggled at him and put his forearm across Frank’s shoulder blades, trying to hold him still as he resumed painting the brightly colored phoenix. “Just hold still, I’m almost done.”

“You said that like an hour ago.” Frank’s voice sounded petulant and Gerard shook his head in mock disappointment even though Frank couldn’t see him.

“I know, but then I looked at it and realized the wings were all wrong.” His eyes flashed up to the pumpkin at the base of Frank’s neck, just barely peeking out from underneath Gerard’s forearm. “How the fuck do you sit through tattoos?”

“Well, you see, tattoos don’t tickle, Gerard.”

“Hey, it was your idea for me to paint it in the first place. Why didn’t you just get it tattooed?”

“Because,” Frank replied, somehow dragging the word out into three syllables. “Back pieces are a huge commitment and I want to make sure I pick the right thing. Think of this as a sort of… test run.”

“A test run?”

“Yeah. This way, if I hate it, it’s not permanent and I can just wash it off.”

“Oh.” Gerard frowned down at the red and yellow bird he’d painted across Frank’s entire back. It was already starting to flake off a bit where it had dried, and he realized that he probably should have used a different kind of paint. It was definitely too late for that now, because he was almost done. Pretty soon, he’d be directing Frank to the mirror to look at it. He realized then that he was almost out of time to ask the question he’d been intending to ask from the moment he’d gotten Frank into his lap. He cleared his throat then, but his voice still sounded tight when he spoke.

“So, um. I was wondering if maybe you’d want to come over on, uh, Christmas.” He concentrated on going over the outline of one of the wings again, pretending that he wasn’t holding his breath so hard it was almost painful.

“Christmas?” He tried to read Frank’s reaction from his voice but it was pretty even, as far as questions went.

“Yeah, our whole family is gonna be here and I know that’s kind of overwhelming so I completely understand if you don’t want to or whatever, it’s not a big deal. It’s really not a big deal, I just thought I’d ask because it’s just you and your mom. I don’t even know what you do on Christmas usually, but I wanted you to be here, and I know it’s like… a month away but I told my mom I wanted you to come and she said I should ask now and—"

Gerard suddenly couldn’t speak because Frank had pushed himself up and twisted until he was sitting in Gerard’s lap and kissing him. It wasn’t intense, just enough to shut Gerard up, which seemed to be the goal. Gerard was content to be kissed until he thought of the wet paint on Frank’s back somehow smearing and whined. Frank pulled away, grinning.

“Of course I’ll come to Christmas, you idiot.”

“Okay.” Gerard’s answering smile was much smaller than Frank’s, but it was still a smile. It grew as Frank slid out of his lap and left the bedroom to go look at Gerard’s masterpiece, plateauing into a grin when he heard Frank yelling at him from the bathroom that it was fucking amazing. In the end, Frank decided he did _not_ want a phoenix, so Gerard didn’t feel all that bad when the paint ended up on Gerard’s sheets instead of on Frank’s back. Sometimes art casualties were worth it.

* * *

He was trying not to stress out. It was just Christmas, just one of the most important family holidays in the history of humanity, and it was just Frank coming over to spend the day with his family, who were just some of the most out of balance people he’d ever met. No big deal.

Gerard couldn’t sleep the night before. He had tried, his attempts ending in a nightmare in which Frank had been strangled by a string of lights in a freak accident involving his dad trying to serve Frank coffee while everyone opened presents. All in all, it wasn’t the most bizarre nightmare Gerard had ever had but he still woke up sweating, his hands shaking as he pushed his hair back from his head. He worried that he might have made a noise and woken his brother, but when he glanced at Mikey, he was still asleep in the other sleeping bag.

Every other room in his house was full of family members, of aunts and uncles and cousins who lived scattered across the country but had flown in for the holidays. Gerard still had no idea why they were all staying in his parents’ house, but he had only complained once before his mom had told him how she was so glad he and his brother were volunteering to give their beds up to their cousins. He had been completely on board after that lest he lose them both their places at the dinner table or something.

The basement wasn’t so bad anyways — a lot of his art stuff was already down there, and he’d been considering moving his bed down there, too. Then he and Mikey would have their own rooms, and some privacy, which Frank would definitely be on board with. Maybe this was the last push he needed to move the rest of his things and actually make it his room.

He got into the shower, trying to calm himself and hoping that he didn’t wake anyone with the sound of running water. His efforts to be quiet were not completely successful; when he came out of the bathroom, his brother was sitting up, rubbing at his eyes, his glasses clutched in one hand. Without a word, both of them went upstairs into the kitchen, the only other room that didn’t have anyone sleeping in it, even if Mikey had jokingly suggested to their mom that they should put a mattress down on the floor. Mikey quietly closed the door between the kitchen and the living room and Gerard nodded in approval before moving to start a pot of coffee. It was two in the morning, and while their parents were heavy sleepers and accustomed to Mikey and Gerard’s odd hours, he didn’t think his Aunt Laura would be so forgiving.

“What are you doing up, Mikes?” Gerard had foolishly left his cigarettes on the table. He opened the pack, completely expecting for it to have been scavenged, but thankfully there were a few left. He sat down and lit one for himself, then handed the pack and his lighter to Mikey before tugging over the ashtray that lived on top of the table.

“Couldn’t sleep. The floor is fucking hard down there.” Gerard huffed out a laugh at that, because it was. He could already feel the knot forming in between his shoulders. “I heard you in the shower and gave up.”

Gerard nodded and leaned his elbows onto the table, running the hand that wasn’t holding his cigarette through his damp hair. “They’ll all leave in like two days. It’s not that long.”

Mikey shrugged. “I wasn’t complaining, I was answering your question.” Gerard smiled stiffly before taking another drag from his cigarette, letting the smoke slowly filter out through the side of his mouth. “Why are you awake?”

“Nightmare.” Gerard shuddered as he remembered it, wishing that his memory wasn’t always so vivid. “Frank and strings of Christmas lights.”

He watched Mikey’s face as it shifted into something that let on that he clearly didn’t think it had been a nightmare, and he kicked him underneath the table. “Oh, shut up,” Gerard snapped, even though he hadn’t actually said anything. Mikey, who knew a soft spot when he found one, just grinned and shrugged his bony shoulders.

“Hey, who am I to judge what you’re dreaming about tying your boyfriend up with?”

Mikey let out a quiet giggle, so Gerard kicked him again, harder this time. That prompted a small scuffle in which they probably made more noise than necessary, but they quieted down again after they heard movement from the living room. Both of them turned to the door and listened, but after a minute passed without any other indication they’d woke someone up, they resumed their kicking match at a much quieter level.

Eventually, Mikey finished his coffee and went back down to try and get some more sleep, leaving Gerard alone in the kitchen. He drank the rest of the pot of coffee and smoked another cigarette before he fell asleep, cheek pressed to the cold surface of the table. The sleep, while not particularly deep or restful, was thankfully free of dreams of any kind. He woke up a few hours later when his mom shuffled into the kitchen, seeming not at all surprised to find her oldest son sleeping on the kitchen table. Gerard got up and kissed her cheek, stealing a cup of coffee from the pot she had made and going to wake up Mikey.

A few hours later, Gerard was sitting outside on the porch, waiting for Frank to arrive. While Gerard had asked him over for Christmas, Frank had agreed under the assumption that he would come over after mass with his own family. It was something Frank said his mom wouldn’t budge on, despite the fact that Frank was twenty years old and barely counted as a Catholic anymore. Still, moms were impossible to say no to, Gerard knew that firsthand. He hadn’t bugged Frank about it, even if it meant that he got to spend the morning anxiously waiting until Frank showed up. He was even more anxious without his cigarettes, since he had definitely smoked through what was left of his pack early that morning. Gerard was left jittery, his fingers itching to hold something. He was considering borrowing one from his mom, even though she smoked those disgusting Virginia Slim things, when he saw Frank’s car pull around the corner.

There weren’t many places to park, not with the sheer amount of people gathered at the Way’s house. Not only were the family members that had stayed overnight in attendance, the more local ones had also shown up that morning. Gerard watched Frank drive all the way down the street and back, eventually parking his beat up car in front of a dumpster. It wasn’t technically legal, but it was Christmas, and Gerard couldn’t imagine a cop going around and ticketing people who dared to park illegally on a residential street. Gerard watched Frank hop out of his car and jog towards the Way house, slowing as he came to the bottom of the stairs. His mouth formed a silent ‘oh’ as if he hadn’t expected Gerard to be waiting on the porch, and Gerard stood up, moving down the stairs to kiss him. He was already taller than Frank, which the stairs made even worse, so he had to lean over dramatically, Frank’s hands coming up to his waist to keep him from falling over.

“I brought cigarettes,” Frank murmured against his mouth, his hands gripping at the sides of Gerard’s shirt, and Gerard felt something inside of his chest twist.

The two of them stayed on the porch, smoking and stealing kisses as long as they dared. They Gerard’s mom hollering for him once before Frank got antsy and insisted they go inside before she came looking for them. Mikey just shook his head as Gerard led Frank into the living room and introduced him to everyone. Every seat in the room was taken, and Gerard and Frank moved to sit on the floor next to where Mikey sat on the couch.

“I tried to save you a seat but you took too long,” Mikey muttered. Gerard nodded, a silent thank you, and then gave Frank a small smile. His family wasn’t completely crazy, though they had their moments, and Frank had already been around Gerard and Mikey’s parents enough that he didn’t seem thrown off by their oddness anymore. Gerard wasn’t sure why he was so nervous, though it maybe had to do with Frank sitting too close to a tree that had murdered him in Gerard’s dream realm not even twelve hours before. Frank seemed to sense it, or saw the way his hands were trembling slightly, because he leaned his knee against Gerard’s, making it look casual even if it was the most reassuring contact he’d had all day. Gerard felt better immediately, if only slightly, but it was instant, all the same.

* * *

“I think Christmas was good. D’you think it was good, Mikes?”

“Yeah, Gee, I think it went really well.” Mikey’s voice was flat, but Gerard knew that it was more from his concentration on the cars moving around them than his disinterest in the topic at hand, even though Gerard wouldn’t blame him for that either. It had been a week since the family gathering at Christmas, and Frank had impressed everyone, though no one more than Gerard. It wasn’t that he had been worried about Frank — he had been more worried about Frank’s reaction to his extended family than anything else — but Frank had been polite and funny and completely engaging. He even kept the younger cousins entertained with a spontaneous air guitar contest, graciously admitting defeat in the final round between him and Gerard’s youngest cousin. The aunts and uncles seemed thoroughly sold on Frank despite his tattoos and punk hair, and the cousins were completely enamored with him. After everyone had left or gone to sleep, Gerard had kept Frank from leaving for a solid hour by making out with him against the side of the house, like they were high schoolers or something. He knew that Frank was freezing from the way he was shaking, but he didn’t push Gerard away until he absolutely had to leave.

Now it was New Year’s Eve and they had all gone out to a show. Even Ray, who usually abstained on account of having to go in early to open the store, had gone with them. They had all gone in separate cars, except for Gerard and Mikey, and met at the venue. Gerard had drunk just a bit too much, leaving Mikey responsible for driving back home. They had all planned to stay at the Way’s house, so they left the venue in a weird little caravan, Mikey leading the way in Gerard’s car with Ray and Frank following in both of theirs.

“You saw the way Aunt Laura looked at him?”

“Yes, Gerard.” Mikey was leaning slightly forward as Gerard looked over at him. Gerard started giggling.

“What are you _doing_?”

“Making sure we don’t lose Frank and Ray if the lights change.”

“Oh.” Gerard gaped at that, turning around to make sure they were still following, the seat belt pulling uncomfortably at his chest. When he was satisfied that they were both still there, he straightened in his seat again. “Anyways, he’s this tiny punk, and Aunt Laura totally didn’t think he would be nice, but he was! He was. Don’t you think?”

“Uh huh.”

“I mean, even I didn’t know he was that nice. Of course he’s nice, I know he’s nice, but h—”

Later, when they asked what Gerard remembered about the accident, he would say nothing, but that wasn’t exactly true. If he thought about it, he remembered the lights, seeming to come from every direction as it reflected off of the glass shards flying through the car, and he remembered the noise of everything shattering and crunching around him. He remembered reaching for Mikey as soon as the car stopped spinning, and he remembered how Mikey didn’t move when Gerard shook his shoulder. He remembered the blood on the side of Mikey’s face. He remembered screaming.

* * *

The first people that got to them were Frank and Ray. Ray was already holding a phone to his ear at Mikey’s window as Frank opened the passenger side door. Gerard couldn’t get his seatbelt off, and he didn’t understand why Frank was so calm when Mikey was right there, unconscious and bleeding but _breathing_ , Gerard could see the unsteady rise and fall of his chest, and why wouldn’t Frank stop trying to push Gerard’s hands away from the seat belt? Gerard tried to ask him what the fuck he was doing, but Frank just continued asking him if he was okay which Gerard continued to ignore. Gerard finally got the seat belt undone with an audible click and immediately twisted in his seat to try and get Mikey out. Ray and Frank both started yelling at him, their voices mixing together in a panicked chorus of illogical demands for him to stop.

“Let me—”

“Gerard, Gerard, no—” Frank was grabbing for his hands again.

“No!”

“Gerard!” Ray sounded so serious about getting his attention that Gerard looked at him. “Stop.”

“But he’s my brother, he’s hurt, I need—”

Ray shook his head frantically, his hair swaying around his face. “You need to leave him there until the paramedics get here and assess him.” Gerard gaped at him, but Ray just shook his head again. “If you try to move him, you could hurt him more.”

Frank’s hands were at his shoulders, tugging him towards the door. “C’mon, Gee.”

Gerard let himself be maneuvered out of the car. Once he was on the sidewalk, he could see that the other car was actually a truck, a small one, but a truck nonetheless. From what Gerard could see, it barely looked like he’d hit anything aside from a broken headlight. The driver, an old man with long grey hair, couldn’t even stand up straight as he staggered towards them, obviously drunk, apologizing profusely. He didn’t even seem remotely hurt, and that made Gerard so angry he could have punched him if he hadn’t been so worried about his brother. Ray made sure the guy stayed far away from both Gerard and Mikey, and Frank made sure Gerard remained on the sidewalk.

Aside from all the broken glass, Gerard’s side of the car looked almost untouched. Mikey’s side, which the other driver had hit completely square on, was crumpled beyond belief. Gerard let out a sob at the sight of it and Frank’s arms moved around him, holding him tightly as the siren from the approaching ambulance grew louder.

After the paramedics pulled Mikey from the car and loaded him into the ambulance, Frank put Gerard into his own car so they could follow it to the hospital. Ray stayed to give a statement to the police and to share the contact information for everyone else. Though the paramedics had cleared him, Gerard was still in shock, feeling like everything was simultaneously sharp and dull. He mentioned something about calling his mom, but he couldn’t find his phone in his pocket. Frank handed him something, and Gerard looked down to find Frank’s phone, but he suddenly couldn’t remember his mom’s number, so he just focused on watching the lights of the ambulance in front of them.

By the time they reached the hospital, Gerard felt numb. Frank helped him fill out the paperwork and kept asking the doctors that came out to the waiting room for updates on Mikey, but Gerard couldn’t do anything more than sit and wait. Ray showed up and had a quiet conversation with Frank before leaving again, only to return a few minutes later. Frank squeezed Gerard’s hand, but Gerard barely felt it. His little brother was hurt, and there was nothing he could do for him, despite that he had always done his best to protect him. As he sat there, stewing in his failure to be a good brother, Frank reached for his hand and squeezed it again, repeating the action until Gerard looked at him.

“He’s gonna be okay.” Gerard shook his head, but Frank held up his other hand to stop him. “Don’t. Don’t do that. Mikey would be so pissed if he knew you were out here not believing in him.” Gerard glanced up at Ray, who was sitting on the other side of Frank, and he nodded in agreement as Frank continued. “He’s skinny and shit, but he’s not weak, and if you think something as dumb as a car crash is going to take him out, you’re not really thinking straight.”

Gerard didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything, just leaned his head on Frank’s shoulder and tried to think good thoughts for his brother, who was stronger than anyone (including Gerard but not including Frank, apparently) gave him credit for.

A little while later, Gerard and Mikey’s parents came into the emergency room, looking around before making a beeline for Gerard and hugging him so hard it hurt, but at least he felt something. He felt everything then, every ache and scratch and worry and fear that Mikey wouldn't be okay. He also felt Frank's hand, squeezing his before he started to tug it away, but Gerard didn't let go.

* * *

“I could have been a priest in another life.”

Gerard was staring at a painting fixed to the wall of the doctor’s office, a cheery image of Jesus being crucified. Just the kind of thing that brought the positive energy needed to therapy patients recovering from trauma. He heard Frank snort, and mutter something that sounded like ‘bullshit.’ This made him spin and look at Frank, who was busy playing on his phone and ignoring the pointed way that Gerard was frowning at him.

“I could have!”

Frank scoffed. “You hate the Catholic church.”

Gerard rolled his eyes at that. “I don’t hate the church. I hate some of the stuff they judge people for.” He went and sat on the edge of the chair next to Frank, instantly crossing his arms and bringing one hand up to chew on the tips of his fingers. “You know, the whole, ‘gay people are going to hell’ thing. But the spiritual part, being closer to God and having something to believe in? That part’s nice.”

Frank fixed him with a look. “You can overlook the whole going to hell thing because it’s nice believing in an invisible and vengeful omnipotent being who is judging our every move, word, and thought?” His tone was justifiably incredulous.

Gerard tried not to pout, he really did, but he must have failed because Frank sighed and leaned in, pressing their shoulders together as a sign of his apparent acceptance. “Why do you think you could have been a priest?”

Really, that was all it took. Gerard turned to Frank and grinned, happy to have gotten Frank on his side. “There’s just something about being part of something bigger than yourself. Like, guiding people to God and shit.”

Frank laughed and Gerard smiled wider at the sound. “And shit.” Gerard wrinkled his nose and Frank leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “There are other ways to do that, you know.”

“Yeah.” Gerard grew quiet as he thought that over. “But priests get to wear those cool robes.”

Frank laughed again. “Gee, you are probably the only person alive who thinks those robes look cool.”

Gerard was just beginning to protest when the door to the back office opened and Mikey emerged, crutches supporting him since he wasn’t able to put weight on his left leg. Gerard immediately forgot every argument he had in lieu of checking in with his brother. Apparently, the physical therapist had a mean streak, and it only took one snicker from Gerard before Frank was launching into an entire explanation about the tragic and complicated backstory of Mikey’s sadistic therapist, and Mikey was rolling his eyes all the way to the car.

 

### Part Five - Frank

The next few weeks passed by without incident. Frank went about his routine of waking up and heading to work, putting up with Dewees’ eccentricities and ignoring the disrespectful way everyone seemed to speak to him, a lowly member of the mail room team. He kept trying to work with Liza on her potty training, but she refused to pay any attention to where or when she was going. When he asked the doggy day care lady if she had any problems with it, she just grunted at him and shook her head. It seemed that Frank was on his own with that particular issue. He messed around with his guitar in the evenings and wrote some songs that he immediately hated and wondered when the fuck he had lost all of his inspiration and artistic abilities. Any actual thought in that vein was tamped down, because he knew when, even if he chose to ignore it. He refused to remember how close he had come to breaking and texting Gerard that night on the couch.

The show that Ray was coming to the city for rolled around faster than he thought it would. Frank had almost forgotten to purchase tickets at all, but Ray had texted him asking if he could also get one for Mikey, if there were any left, and Frank had rushed over to the venue right after work. Luckily it wasn’t sold out yet, and Frank thanked his karma for not completely sucking. When he woke up on the day of the show, he went to work like normal, the day dragging on in the way that it tended to do when he had something to look forward to. He made it through, somehow, picking up Liza and taking her for a long walk before dropping her off at the apartment and changing.

The plan was to meet Mikey and Ray at a diner close to the venue, one that actually served decent vegetarian options, and then they would head out from there, returning to his apartment after. He almost forgot the tickets in his rush to get out the door and had to run back up the stairs to get the envelope from where it was stuck with a magnet to the fridge. Then he felt guilty all over again for leaving Liza alone, so he stopped to pet her and give her some quality scratches. By the time he got out of the apartment again, he was officially late. Frank caught a cab to the diner but he was still the last one there, Ray and Mikey already sitting next to each other in a booth. They both looked up at him as he slid onto the seat across from them, and gave him their typical greetings, Ray beaming at him and Mikey giving him a small nod of acknowledgement.

“Hey, sorry I’m late.” Frank ignored the wave of Ray’s hand saying it was okay, barreling on with his quip. “I’m not saying I left the tickets behind but this envelope blended into the fridge the first time I tried to head over here.”

Ray raised an eyebrow, shaking his head. “I would say I should have bought the tickets, but you would have just found some other reason to be late.”

“Fuck off, Toro.” Frank didn’t mean it maliciously, that much was obvious by the grin on his face. Ray grinned back at him, and Mikey just shook his head at them both, muttering something about idiots underneath his breath. They didn’t get a chance to continue their conversation before the server, who had obviously been waiting for the third person in their party to arrive, made their way over to the table and got the table’s drink order. Frank already knew what he wanted (just because there were decent vegetarian options at the diner didn’t mean there was a lot to choose from), and Mikey and Ray had been there long enough to decide what they wanted to eat, so the server took their food order, too.

The three of them talked about the show while they waited for their drinks; Mikey had already seen them, which wasn’t a surprise at all. Mikey had seen practically every band at least once. It was like it was his career or something, and in a perfect world, it probably would have been. Neither Ray nor Frank had seen the main band, but the opener was a local band that Frank had seen open for someone else recently, and he was excited to see their high-energy set again. Around the time the server brought their food to the table, the conversation turned to Ray’s mom, who Frank had heard from his own mother was doing much better, and then that flowed into discussion about all of their parents and what Ray’s brothers were up to these days. Frank was, of course, an only child, which meant that the only person left to talk about was Gerard, and it felt like Ray and Mikey were pointedly avoiding bringing him up in conversation. As frustrating as that was, Frank would probably have let it go were it not for his recent bout with self-doubt. He dipped a french-fry into ketchup and then chewed it, trying to figure out how to bridge that conversational gap. In typical Frank fashion, he decided to just throw caution to the wind and be as blunt as humanly possible.

“So, how's Gerard?”

Ray and Mikey exchanged glances, prompting Frank to frown. He had spent enough time with the Way brothers to know that Mikey and Gerard sometimes communicated with just their eyes, but it was completely new to see Mikey and Ray doing it.

“Since when do you fucks have a secret, silent language?” Frank meant it as a joke, and even though Ray flashed a small smile at him, Mikey’s expression was blank, too serious even for him. Frank could feel his own smile fading from his face more each second that they didn’t respond to his teasing. “What? What is it?”

“Frank…” Ray hesitated a bit and gave Mikey the opening to cut in.

“You need to leave Gerard alone.”

Frank blinked at him and then glanced at Ray to confirm that he hadn’t gone crazy and wasn’t hearing things, but Ray was busy tearing his napkin into pieces and pretending he wasn’t listening.

“Mikey,” Frank started, speaking slowly like he was talking to a wild animal, which was exactly what it felt like. “I have been leaving him alone.”

“But you’ve _never_ asked about him. Like, at all. It’s been a year and you’ve never once been the one to bring him up.”

“I wasn’t going to do anything.”

“Okay, but he’s just now getting over things. If you try to talk to him…” Frank leaned back against the seat of the booth and frowned, taking an angry sip of his beer before setting it down. He felt guilty, for a _lot_ of things, but that didn’t mean it didn’t piss him off when Ray and Mikey insinuated that he should. He looked moodily out of the window of the diner, shaking his head.

“I was just asking how he was, fuck.”

“Dude, we’re not accusing you.” This was Ray, who obviously sensed the shift in Frank’s mood, attempting to salvage what was left of the good time they’d been having.

Frank was tempted to get up and stomp off to the venue by himself. Instead he just scoffed.

“Well, it sounds like you are.”

The server chose that moment to show up and ask if they wanted anything else, simultaneously diffusing the situation. All three of them said no, and Frank tried to pretend that he hadn’t just been scolded for caring about someone. He also tried pretending that he had any moral high ground, that he hadn’t completely lost the right to care about that person ages ago. The three of them paid and left the diner, walking the short distance to the venue. Frank sulked as he followed Ray and Mikey down the sidewalk, smoked two entire cigarettes, and by the time they could hear the sound coming from the venue, he was feeling much more like he usually felt before a show. Any remaining tension he felt was worked out the moment he threw himself into the pit, thrashing around with the rest of the crowd and earning some quality bruises.

At the end of the show, he found Ray and Mikey somewhere near the front of the stage but at the edge of the crowd, the same place they usually were. While the two of them had obviously had a good time — Ray’s hair was soaked with sweat and Mikey’s clothes were a bit more rumpled than they had been before— neither of them tended to be as into getting tossed around the crowd as Frank did. No sooner had Frank had the thought than Ray was grinning and knocking into Frank’s shoulder.

“Dude, remember that time you made friends with that giant and he literally picked you up and tossed you towards the stage?”

Frank started laughing because he totally did, and Mikey snorted, probably at the image of Frank being turned into a missile, and Frank knew then that the three of them were okay again.

An hour later found them back at Frank’s house, sitting around the living room with a few beers and reliving some of the other shows they had been to. Frank noted that Mikey had Liza cuddled up in his lap; he could talk as much shit as he wanted about her being the world’s weirdest dog but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Ray had the closest thing to a normal sleep schedule and it wasn’t long before he went to the bathroom to get ready for bed, prompting Frank to set up the pullout. Usually when they both stayed over after a show, one of them slept in the chair and the other slept on the bed. At some point in the last few, Frank had started coming out in the morning and finding them both curled up together, but he pretended not to notice. If they weren’t ready to tell him something, he would be patient until they were. Sure, it hurt his feelings a little that they didn’t trust him, but he understood that he’d been a little weird about the whole relationship and romance thing since the Hindenburg.

He fucking hated that nickname.

Frank bid them both goodnight and scooped up Liza, kissing her mangy face and setting her down gently on the couch. For some reason, he couldn’t sleep — probably on account of the bright electric energy still coursing through his bloodstream from the show. He was dreading having to go to work the next day. Maybe he would call in sick. He rolled over and checked his phone and saw that it was two in the morning. There had been no noise from the living room for about an hour now, and Frank thought it was probably safe to sneak into the kitchen for some water. He was quiet, holding his breath as he tiptoed down the hallway, but Mikey was quieter, and Frank barely contained a shriek when the dark shadow sitting on the edge of the counter shifted.

“Dude, chill, it’s me.” Frank could just make out his features, and he could tell that Mikey was laughing at him.

“Fucking… shit, Mikey.” Frank held his hand to his chest, trying to stop his heart from pounding. He definitely wasn’t going to get to sleep now. He watched as Mikey slipped off the countertop, reaching up into the cabinet for two cups and filling them both with water. Handing one to Frank, he shook his head.

“You literally never change.” His tone was hushed, though Frank didn’t know why. He could hear Ray snoring on the pullout bed and he knew from experience that Ray could and would sleep through an entire rack of pots and pans falling to the floor. Even if the midnight cuddling sessions between Ray and Mikey were local just to Frank’s apartment, Mikey was aware of this fact because he had been there when Frank had dropped said rack.

The thing was, Mikey was right. Frank had lost count of the amount of times he and Mikey had a conversation on the floor of the Way’s kitchen in the early hours of the morning. Frank always came up from the basement in search of water, leaving Gerard painting or watching some movie with glazed eyes, and finding Mikey in the kitchen. For some reason, they never sat at the table, choosing instead to sit in the corner of the kitchen on the floor with cups of water and coffee as they talked about movies and music and comics, never running out of conversation topics. When Frank had left town, he had been terrified to lose Mikey as a friend. They had gotten rather close during the course of Frank’s relationship with Gerard, but it had been a casualty of the break-up that Frank had been willing to accept (if not exactly prepared to). Luckily, Mikey had found it within himself to be able to continue their friendship, despite the fact that Frank had been the direct cause of hurting his brother.

Tonight felt just like then, even if it was in an entirely different kitchen. As soon as Mikey handed off Frank’s water cup, he sank to the floor, his bony knees tugged up by his chest as he wrapped an arm around his legs. The movement was almost smooth, except for the small hitch on one side, and Frank wondered if Mikey’s hip still bothered him, but he didn’t ask. He simply followed suit, crossing his legs as he sat so that one of his knees touched one of Mikey’s ankles. He took a gulp of water, wrinkling his nose at the warm temperature of it but not saying anything.

It was obvious that there was something specific Mikey wanted to talk about, and though Frank had an idea of what it was, he felt comfortable feigning ignorance until the very last moment. Still, remaining silent until Mikey got around to bringing up whatever that topic was wasn’t Frank’s style and never had been.

“So what’s up, Mikeyway? Couldn’t sleep?” His eyes had adjusted to the dark well enough that he could see Mikey’s eyebrow had quirked up in that particular way he had, and Frank busied himself by taking another drink of his water. It was a few more seconds of silence before Mikey answered, enough that Frank knew he was trying to say exactly what he wanted to say, which was pretty standard for Mikey. Somehow he was able to say just as much as anyone else by using half as many words.

“Do you really want to know how Gerard is doing?”

Frank took a deep breath and let it out slowly, biting at his lip. His suspicions about the topic had been right on, and he almost wished he had been wrong. He shrugged and Mikey scoffed, shaking his head.

“Don’t give me that shit.”

“Sorry, damn. I just don’t know how to answer.”

“It’s a pretty easy question, Frank. You either want to or you don’t.” Frank stared at him through the darkness, Mikey’s glare unwavering in the pale green light of the microwave. Frank almost shrugged again, but he owed Mikey this. Mikey had never outright blamed him for anything even though Frank knew he had every right to do so. He took another breath and chewed at his lip some more before answering, his voice sounding small as he did.

“He hasn’t messaged me in like two months.” He paused, watching Mikey shift like he was about to cut Frank off, and Frank immediately rushed to get the rest of the words out, to explain himself. “I know, I know that’s nothing and it’s good for him that he’s not. I just… I knew he was okay when he was messaging me every few days.”

“He wasn’t okay.” Mikey’s voice was surprisingly sharp for the lack of volume and it made Frank feel like he was very wrong, which he knew he totally was. “He hasn’t been okay since you left.”

“I know.”

“You fucking broke his heart, Frank.”

“I know, Mikey, I fucking know.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t know.”

“See,” Mikey started, shifting and setting his cup of water on the floor like he was about to really lay into Frank and couldn’t be bothered to hold it. “I can understand the running. I can understand that maybe there’s something fucked up with you, or maybe something happened. I don’t fucking know, but I can understand it, I guess. What I don’t get about this entire stupid thing is that I never once thought you’d want to hurt him more than you already have.”

Frank tried to protest, but Mikey just kept talking.

“I’m not done. Even if you did what you had to do, if you had to get out of that town and cut off ties with him because you thought it would be easier… I’m not saying you’re wrong. At least you didn’t drag it out, and that was probably for the best. Gerard is clingy, and he obsesses over things. I’m the first person to admit that. Christ, we’ve talked about your break-up and every moment of your relationship so much it feels like I was part of it. But now, when he’s finally doing better, when he is finally distracted by something else and he doesn’t feel the need to call you or text you every few days just so you know he’s thinking about you, _now_ you want to know how he is? What the fuck, Frank? How is that better for him?”

There was silence then. Mikey had never said so many words at once to Frank, and it almost felt like Frank should let the energy of the conversation recharge before he responded. It didn’t help that he didn’t know what to say. That was his original intention — that was why he had left the way he had, but backtracking now felt selfish. He knew that, and he knew that answer wouldn’t be acceptable to Mikey, but it was the only one he had.

“I… fuck, Mikey, I miss him.” His voice sounded smaller than normal, even to his own ears, but Mikey’s expression didn’t soften at all.

“Don’t. You don’t get to miss him. You had an entire year to miss him.”

“I know.”

“Gerard is fine. He’s moving on.” Mikey stood up then, shaking his head even as he did. He moved towards the living room, and then paused, looking back at Frank. The ‘you should move on, too’ was unspoken, but Frank could practically still hear it. It rang so loudly in his ears that it almost drowned out what Mikey actually said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Then he was gone, and Frank was alone again.

### Part Six - Gerard

They were sweaty and Gerard couldn’t really move, mostly on account of the comfortable buzzing feeling soaking his bones, but also because Frank was laying across his torso and even though he was short, he was actually really fucking heavy. Still, there was this warmth in Gerard’s chest that he understood, even if it frightened him. He had been feeling it for weeks, and for some reason, today felt like a good day to do something about it.

“Frank.” There was no answer, and Gerard wondered if maybe Frank had dozed off. His breathing was slow and even, warm against the skin of Gerard’s chest, so he wouldn’t put that completely out of the realm of possibility.

“Frank,” he repeated, slightly louder this time. He wanted Frank to look at him, but even the nudges to his back proved to be useless. “ _Frank._ ”

“Mmm?” Frank’s responding hum was quiet, and the accompanying burst of air almost tickled.

“Come here. I want to tell you something.”

“’m right here.” Gerard sighed at that and Frank stirred, stretching, arching like a cat, his muscles pulling taut underneath Gerard’s hand. He turned his face toward Gerard, sitting up enough that he was able to rest his chin in his hand, his elbow pressed to the bed against Gerard’s side. “Hmm?”

Frank’s bright eyes were blinking slowly at Gerard, and if anything, that just made him want to say it even more.

“I love you.” The words seemed to wake Frank up, to make his eyes focus a little bit more. Gone was his relaxed gaze, and in its place was this intense stare that was locked on Gerard’s face. It seemed like he was searching him for a hint of a joke or something, but Gerard knew he wouldn’t find one because he wasn’t kidding. Eventually, Frank gave something that sounded a bit like a nervous laugh and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, okay. Isn’t that a bit cheesy to say right after sex?”

“Hey! I mean it.” Frank was already sitting up and rolling away, and Gerard bit at his lip. He had obviously broken the comfortable moment they’d been having. Gerard could feel one of the muscles next to his eyebrow twitching, and he realized he was frowning, quickly schooling his expression into one that was less indicative of his confusion. He hadn’t meant to say it and then turn it into a thing if Frank wasn’t going to return the sentiment, and he tried to voice this.

“You don’t— you don’t have to say it back…”

Frank was sitting at the edge of the bed, his feet on the floor while he ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up in all directions. Gerard resisted both the urge to point this out and the one to reach out and smooth it, not really sure what he could say to fix the awkwardness. At a loss, he just did that thing where he said every possible response at once and hoped that one of them stuck.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. I mean, I did, but I didn’t meant to ruin anything. We can just forget I said it. I’m sorry.”

“No, Gee, it’s fine.” Frank sighed and turned back to him, dropping his hand out of his hair and reaching for Gerard’s with it, his fingers firm as they squeezed his hand. “It just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

Gerard didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded. Frank gave his hand another squeeze before he stood up and started kicking through the clutter on Gerard’s floor, presumably looking for his jeans.

“You’re leaving?” Of all the outcomes he had thought would come from him telling Frank he loved him, Frank getting upset and leaving hadn’t been one of them.

“Yeah, I’m supposed to meet my dad for dinner, remember?” Gerard vaguely remembered mention of that, so he nodded tentatively, watching Frank tug his jeans up over his hips before leaning down to grab his shirt. “I might go stay with him for a day or two. I already asked Ray if it was okay.”

Gerard didn’t want to pout, truly he didn’t, but he could feel his bottom lip start to protrude just slightly, and Frank immediately shook his head.

“Hey, don’t do that. I just haven’t spent time with him lately. I didn’t go there for Christmas, though that was…” Frank trailed off, mumbling as he counted the months on his fingertips. “Shit, that was like seven months ago. Has it really been that long?”

“I think it has to be. Mikey has been out of physical therapy for two months now. He’s not even using the cane now.”

“Damn. Congrats Mikey.” Frank was grinning, and even though Gerard still felt uneasy, he couldn’t help but grin back. He was proud of his brother.

“I’ll make sure to tell him you said so.” Gerard watched Frank grab his shoes before coming to perch on the edge of the bed again to put them on.

“You do that.” Frank finished tying his shoes, and then seemed to notice that Gerard had curled up into himself, something Gerard hadn’t even noticed, and it was Frank’s turn to frown. He turned to crawl on his knees up to Gerard, their faces inches apart when he stopped, his eyes wide and level with Gerard’s. “I’m not… I’m not upset that you said it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Frank kissed him then, soft and sweet, and Gerard had to resist the urge to touch his jaw, to thread his fingers into Frank’s hair. He wanted to pull him back onto the bed and kiss him until he had forgotten what Gerard had said. Instead, he let him go.

* * *

Gerard tried so hard to forget how close he’d come to ruining everything that he almost actually forgot about the entire thing. Except, Frank didn’t come back to work on Monday, even though he had said he would only be staying with his dad for a day or two. He wasn’t answering any of Gerard’s texts either— he’d stopped suddenly on Saturday night, and Gerard had just figured he was busy. He didn’t ask Ray if he had heard from Frank, mostly because it was embarrassing. As Frank’s boyfriend, Gerard should be the one to know his whereabouts. Ray didn’t seem worried and didn’t ask Gerard if he knew where Frank was, so Gerard had to kind of conclude that Ray knew anyways.

Maybe Frank was sick, but if he had been able to contact Ray, he should have been able to contact Gerard, too. Unless, of course, he didn’t want to. Unless he _was_ actually upset about what had happened on Friday and didn’t want to talk to Gerard at all. Gerard tried not to let that idea get the best of him, but it was difficult when everything was radio silence on Tuesday and Wednesday, too, and it wasn’t like he had work to distract him. After two solid hours of listening to Mikey try to talk him down, Gerard finally did what Mikey had suggested and called Frank only for it to go straight to voicemail. The only reason he didn’t descend completely into total freakout mode was the fact that Ray hadn’t seemed concerned about where Frank was, and he held onto that beacon of hope as tightly as he could.

When Frank finally showed up on Thursday morning, Gerard was so relieved he almost didn’t realize that something was wrong. Apparently he had stayed with his dad and had gotten sick, which was pretty standard for Frank, and he hadn’t answered Gerard because he’d left his charger at home and his phone had died. Frank told Gerard that he had just searched for the record store on the internet so he could call from his dad’s phone, and apparently Ray thought Gerard knew so he hadn’t said anything.

It wasn’t until Frank took Ray into the back office that Gerard thought there might be something else going on, and even then, he figured it wasn’t his business until Frank decided to tell him. It was only a matter of time, really — Frank eventually told him everything, always. That’s just how close they were, and how important they were to each other. Frank would tell him what was going on, probably after work.

Gerard wasn’t wrong. After work, Frank asked if they could go for a drive and Gerard agreed. He saw Ray look at him funny as they walked out of the store, though, and he didn’t understand why, not until Frank had pulled the car over in an empty parking lot and turned the radio down. Not until he took a deep breath and didn’t even give Gerard a chance to ask what was wrong before he was launching into an explanation about how it wasn’t Gerard’s fault, how he was getting out of town and his dad had lined up a job for him that paid pretty well and how they had spent the weekend looking for an apartment for him and he’d already put the deposit down with what he had saved up from the store, how he was sorry but Gerard deserved better, how love just wasn’t something he could do.

It was this last thing that had Gerard crying uncontrollably. All of the rest of it, he could deal with. A few days ago, he would have thought a break-up was coming out of nowhere, but after the weekend of not hearing from Frank at all, well… Gerard wouldn’t be Gerard if he hadn’t suspected the worst. But he knew Frank. He wasn’t a kid anymore, he wasn’t naive enough to believe that all relationships involved actual love, but Frank loved him, even if he didn’t know it himself. There was no way he could touch Gerard like that, no way he could have spent so much time with him, no way he could have been through the things they'd been through, and still not love him. Gerard knew it, and that should be enough. He kept trying to put it into words, but his emotion was too intense — he couldn’t speak through the sobs that kept escaping every time he opened his mouth.

In the end, Frank just drove him home. He tried reaching across the car and patting Gerard’s shoulder, like it was a comfort, but Gerard didn’t want to be touched, not right then. He was making these hideous wailing noises every time Frank tried, and he couldn't get himself to stop. When they got to the Way house, Gerard jumped out of the car and ran inside as quickly as he could, certain that even if he looked back, he wouldn't be able to see Frank through his tears.

That night, after he had locked himself in the basement and cried as much as he could manage, he pulled out his computer and typed up a long email to Frank. In it, he told him everything he'd wanted to say in the car but hadn't been able to, and he fell asleep writing it. He woke up around two am to finish it, and then he stayed awake until the sun had started to rise, rereading it again and again to make sure it was perfect. He printed it out and edited it, scratched out parts he hated and rewrote the entire thing all over again. He finally hit send somewhere around seven am, and immediately collapsed into a deep sleep.

* * *

In the last week, Gerard hadn’t gotten out of bed for longer than five minutes. It was to the bathroom, and then back to bed, to the front door to get pizza, and then back to bed, to the kitchen to grab a package of Poptarts, and then back to bed. He hadn’t looked at himself in the mirror in days, hadn’t showered in longer, and wasn’t terribly interested in either. Ray had completely stopped calling him about missing his shifts, which he had to thank Mikey for — he knew his brother had made some excuse, had arranged a doctor’s note for Gerard’s long illness or maybe he had just told Ray that Gerard quit. He couldn’t be bothered to care. (That wasn’t exactly true; Ray was a good friend, and Gerard knew he’d gotten the short end of the stick with Frank leaving and Gerard losing all will to live over it, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything about that either.)

He wasn’t even crying anymore. That was all he’d done for days and now everything simultaneously ached and felt would never be anything but dry again, like he’d lost the ability to cry because he’d used his life supply of tears. The lack of adequate hydration probably wasn’t helping, but drinking water felt a bit like postponing his inevitable death or fueling the tear-induced fire, whichever metaphor felt more dire in the moment.

All he was doing was sleeping when he could and watching reruns of some sitcom, one he’d practically seen every episode of over the course of the week. Every once in awhile he would text Frank and check his email, but there was no response on either. Even when Gerard texted Frank asking to just let him know that he was okay, he didn’t get anything. Frank had even turned his read receipts off so he couldn’t find any comfort in Frank at least getting his messages.

One morning he woke to find Mikey on his bed — or maybe it was afternoon, Gerard couldn’t be bothered to try and decipher the different levels of light during the day, but it definitely wasn’t night time. Whatever sleeping schedule he’d had to speak of had been completely ruined by his utter lack of caring, though he could tell by Mikey’s expression that it probably wasn’t an appropriate time to be sleeping. Gerard didn’t look at him long though, just turned over towards the wall again and gave Mikey his back. Mikey, the best brother in the entire world, didn’t try to tug the blankets away or something equally horrible and life-ruining. He just sat there, unmoving and steady and slightly creepy in his stillness, just like he always did.

“Are you going to stay in bed forever?”

Gerard tried to respond and realized how dry his throat was, then coughed and swallowed before speaking. “I’m thinking about it.” His voice still sounded wrecked, probably on account of him not speaking to anyone other than Frank’s voicemail in days.

“Mom’s worried.”

Gerard could hear the unspoken part, the part that Mikey didn’t need to say. He was worried too, but Gerard didn’t have any response for that. The silence went on, stretching from a few seconds into a long moment, and still Gerard didn’t break it. He felt Mikey’s weight shift next to him, and then he was right there, wrapping his thin and ridiculously long arms around Gerard awkwardly. In an instant, all of the half-hearted defenses Gerard had up came crumbling down.

It turned out that he still had some tears left after all.

* * *

Contrary to what he had told Mikey, Gerard didn’t actually want to stay in bed forever. One morning he woke up and felt good enough to shower, so he did. Even though he immediately dropped into bed after drying off, it felt like progress. The next day he picked up all the trash off of his floor, and the day after that, he took his sketchbook out, and even though he didn’t draw anything he liked, he didn’t think that mattered. He decided to try to do one thing each day, a single thing that made him feel more like a human again, or at least less like a heartbroken zombie.

It wasn’t like he had gotten over the heartbreak thing — he still missed Frank each and every second he was breathing, and he continued to be optimistic that Frank would figure himself out and come back. He didn’t stop texting him either, and he hadn’t stopped hoping he’d get a response. Even a few weeks later, when he’d gone back to the record shop, he would check his phone every time he wasn’t around a customer, and Ray would pretend not to notice despite the standing ‘no phones’ rule. Ray was good like that, which Gerard knew, and completely appreciated.

To get his job back, he had promised Ray he would leave him his entire comic book collection in the event of his death, and Ray had only been half-kidding when he had agreed. Still, he seemed genuinely happy to have Gerard back around, and Gerard had to admit that he was glad to see someone other than Mikey on a regular basis, even if his brother had started hanging around the store more often. He chalked it up to Mikey still being concerned that he was going to slip back into the pit of despair he’d been wallowing in at any given moment, and Gerard honestly couldn’t blame him for being cautious about it.

And even though he refused to give up on Frank, he tried not to let himself fixate on the fact that he wasn’t there. It was difficult — there were days when Gerard couldn’t focus on anything else, and sent text after text to Frank telling him things about his day, like he was actually having a conversation with him. Those nights, Gerard would stop at the corner store after work and buy a 40-ounce and down it before Mikey came downstairs so that by the time his brother showed up for whatever movie marathon they had planned, he was so weepy he couldn’t even pay attention. But the more time went by that Gerard didn’t hear from Frank, those days became fewer and the time between them got longer.

One good thing came out of the breakup that Gerard hadn’t ever expected. He kept coming back to his sketchbook, and although he had always like drawing, it was almost as if he were possessed. At first he didn’t show any of it to his brother (his sketches at the beginning were mostly of Frank, and there were only so many times he could listen to that sigh Mikey made whenever he brought Frank up in conversation) but then he started drawing other things. Sometimes they weren’t even things — sometimes it was just a page of the same patterns over and over again in different colors or with different textures. He ended up picking his favorites and pinning them all to his wall, like some wild quilt that had no continuity or plan or common thread other than that he had created them all. His favorite was this one he had put on the wall right next to his pillow, a complicated floral pattern in the same shades of green as Frank’s eyes. It was one of the first he’d done, and he would fall asleep staring at it, unable to ignore how it refused to reflect light the same way Frank’s eyes had done, how it was nowhere near good enough.

Ten months after Frank left, almost to the day, Gerard interviewed for a job as an assistant for a textile design company. It was something he had applied to on his own after seeing an ad posted online; he hadn’t been looking, but when he’d seen it, he’d had this feeling about it that wouldn’t go away until he had applied. The interview went amazing, and Gerard received a follow-up phone call and a job offer that afternoon. Mikey and Ray took him out to dinner to celebrate, and for the first time, Gerard didn’t feel the need to text Frank about it. He still felt his absence at the restaurant — there would always be that empty space where a fourth person should have been, like the table was unbalanced — but he didn’t ache for him to be there. He didn’t even realize it until he was laying in bed that night and staring at the floral pattern, but by then he was half-asleep.

* * *

“Are you ready?”

Gerard laughed nervously, his hands suddenly feeling itchy. He glanced back to Mikey, laying upside down on his bed, his head hanging over the edge.

“Uh, I don’t know. Will I ever be ready?”

That made Mikey roll over onto his stomach, his glasses halfway down his nose from the sudden change in gravity. He pushed them back up until he could properly peer through them at Gerard.

“I think you’re ready.”

Gerard turned back to the mirror, staring at himself. “I dunno, Mikes.”

“If you never go out again, you’re going to die in this room.”

Gerard flashed him a stupid smile through the mirror. “Would that really be so bad?”

“Dude. It’s one date.”

“Right, but it’s the _first_ date.” Gerard supposed it was about time — it had been a year. And the guy — Aiden, from accounting — was nice enough, even if he did have abnormally shiny hair. He had approached Gerard in the break room out of nowhere with an extra pudding cup and his weird hair, and by the time he had left, he had convinced Gerard to go out the next night, which gave him exactly no time to panic.

“Okay, what’s the worst that will happen?”

Gerard mumbled something about ending up blind from the guy’s shiny hair, but he didn’t tell him what he was really thinking, that the worst that could happen was that the date went perfectly and he walked away from the date feeling something for someone other than Frank. Mikey seemed to sense this, and he maneuvered himself so that he could get up from the bed and stand next to Gerard, making eye contact with him through the mirror. When he spoke again, his voice was low and serious.

“You can’t wait for him to get his shit together forever, Gerard.” Neither of them were talking about Gerard’s date anymore, even though no names had been spoken.

Gerard bit his lip and dropped his gaze to the floor.

“I know.”

* * *

“It went okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Yeah. He was nice and all, but we didn’t click.”

“Hmm.” Mikey’s voice was thin through the tiny speaker, and Gerard turned the volume up all the way on his phone before putting it back to his ear.

“Where are you anyways?”

“The city, with Ray.”

“He’s not at work?”

“Dude, no. It’s Wednesday.”

“Oh.” Gerard had forgotten what day of the week it was in the midst of all the new job stuff. He looked up at all of the drawings pinned to his wall, trying pick out which ones to bring into the office. The designer he was working with had asked him to bring in his favorites from his own work so she could get an idea of the things he liked. She had already seen his portfolio, but she insisted that was full of just the pieces Gerard thought would impress people. “I’ve been busy.”

“I know. It’s like you’ve forgotten who has been waking you up and making sure you don’t miss a day.”

“Uh huh.” Gerard held the phone to his head with his shoulder and reached for a piece near the ceiling, peering at it closely before deciding against it and pinning it to the wall again. “What are you doing in the city?”

“We went to a show with Frank last night.”

Gerard couldn’t help the pang in his chest at hearing Frank’s name, at thinking of him living his own life in the city, and he tried to push it down before he answered.

“How nice.” It wasn’t completely successful, he didn’t think, but Mikey didn’t call him out on it.

“He asked about you.”

Gerard froze. In the year since Frank left, Mikey had sometimes shared details if Gerard bugged him enough about it, but he generally tried to steer clear of talking to Gerard about Frank. Not once had he willingly brought him up, and not once had he shared information that Gerard hadn’t specifically asked for. Apparently he hadn’t responded quickly enough because Mikey spoke again before he could.

“Gerard?”

“I’m here, I just… Do you think I should message him?” It was a question Gerard had asked Mikey a hundred times, at least, in the last year, and Mikey’s answer was usually no, purely because none of Gerard’s prior attempts had been successful, and Mikey hated seeing his brother disappointed each time that Frank didn’t reply.

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t know either, and he knew Mikey wouldn’t take a stance one way or another.

“Listen, Gee, Ray is waving me down so I gotta go. I’ll text you.”

“Okay.”

“If it makes a difference,” Mikey paused, and Gerard could practically see him looking up and trying to decide how he should end that sentence, “I don’t think he’s very happy.”

When they hung up, Gerard put both hands on the wall, leaning against it as he considered what he should do. In the end, it wasn’t a difficult decision at all, despite the fact that all of the attempts he had made in the last year had failed. He opened his conversation with Frank and ignored the ridiculous amounts of messages that hadn’t received a response. The last one he had sent was almost two months ago, right before he’d got his new job, and he realized he had been so busy he hadn’t even messaged Frank at all. Before he could change his mind, he typed a message updating Frank on his life, ending it the way he always ended it, and pressed send.

* * *

_[ text to Frank; 7:42 AM ]: hey. I haven’t messaged in a while but it’s been crazy busy around here these days with the new job. I really like it there, and everyone seems to like me, which is new. they think I’ve got talent or something, which is weird, because like who’s got talent for textile design? apparently me. Anyways, I hope you’re well. I miss you. I love you. xo g_

### Part Seven - Frank

When Frank was seven, his parents did what many parents who fall out of love do: they got divorced. It was relatively painless, as far as divorces go. There was no screaming, no arguing about who got what. No one even fought over Frank, they simply shifted seamlessly into shared custody. Frank’s mom was sad for awhile, and his dad seemed particularly grumpy for months afterwards, even towards Frank, but Frank knew it wasn’t personal. If he had moved out of his house and left his family and Saturday breakfasts behind, Frank would be grumpy, too. Even if his dad picked him up every Friday and made breakfast Saturday morning in his tiny apartment, it was _not_ the same.

Just because his parents hadn’t made it didn’t mean that Frank didn’t believe in love, though. He knew he loved his dog, Marco, and he loved both his parents, and he completely believed in the love stories that were featured in the movies, even if he pretended to be grossed out by the romantic parts. It wasn’t that he didn’t really like them, but as an eight year old boy who was on the small side and had to stay home sick all the time, he had to make sure he didn’t give people any more reasons to tease him.

When he was nine, one of his classmates came to school with pictures of her brand new baby sister. Frank, who had always been content being an only child, suddenly wanted a sibling more than anything. He thought about asking his mom for one before immediately deciding against it — it wasn’t the kind of conversation he wanted to have with her, and just the idea of it made him stick out his tongue in disgust. Instead, he waited until his dad picked him up that Friday, barely lasting until his seatbelt was on before he launched into the long explanation he had prepared about exactly why he needed and deserved a little brother. Everything came out perfectly (probably because he’d practiced) and by the time he finished, he was certain that his dad would agree. He had stayed quiet, the smoke from his cigarette floating out of the partially rolled-down window, and had listened to Frank go through the whole thing before shaking his head and telling Frank, in no uncertain terms, that it wasn’t going to happen. Babies required love, he said, and he was never going to fall for that again. What he said next, his voice scratchy and worn, would stay with Frank forever.

“Frankie, look. Love’s all bunch of lies made-up by Disney to sell movies and make money. It ain’t real. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll learn that your happiness shouldn’t rely on someone else’s.”

Frank would, of course, grow up to learn that babies were often born without love, and his happiness wasn’t always his own, but he never forgot the most important part of that lesson, that love wasn’t real. It stayed with him all the way through high school and college, and through a dozen shallow relationships, and he never even let himself believe in the opportunity for love in any of them, let alone fall for it.

Then, he met Gerard.

* * *

**To:** _frnnnnnnnnk@mail.com_

 **From:** _d00mpuhtroll@mail.com_

 **Date:** Thursday, July 23, 2017 at 7:02 AM

 **Subject:** DON’T DELETE! Important… Please Read!

_Dear Frank,_

_You are probably already out of town by now. I know that when you decide to do something, you can’t help but do it. It’s part of who you are, part of your stubbornness, and I know that even if you wanted to, you couldn’t stop this now, not when there are people who think you can’t, or shouldn’t, even if one of those people is me and I have a good reason for thinking you shouldn't._

_I know you think that you’re not capable of loving someone, but I know that’s not true. I know it, and I know it better than I’ve ever known anything. I know the amount of what I actually know is pretty small — I’ve never done anything worth bragging about. I’ve never learned anything worth teaching to anyone else. But I know enough. I know that you don’t live the way that you live without being capable of love._

_For starters, you are completely unapologetic about who you are. I think that’s what drew me to you the very first time I saw you in Ray’s store. I knew then that you were going to change my life, I just didn’t know how much. You’ve never even pretended to be sorry about the way you crashed into my life and my family. You’re practically a third son to my parents by now, and I know that they’re weird, but you’ve never judged them for that. You’ve never judged me or Mikey for that either, and I think that says something about you and the person that you are. Maybe you’re just as weird as we are, or maybe you just have a special place in your heart for weirdness, but you’re not as tough as you like people, maybe even yourself, to believe. You care about us. You care about animals and things that can’t protect themselves, and you would never let anything or anyone suffer so long as you had any say in it._

_If you have to leave, then leave. If you have to start a new life and find a new job and a new place to live, then do it. But if you’re running from love, that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, Frank. It doesn’t work like that. I’m not going to apologize for the way I love you. I’m never going to do that, never. You don’t apologize for things that you have no control over._

_I know I’m not wrong about you. I know I’m not. There’s no way. And I promise, I’ll be here when you figure it out. I’m not giving up on you, no matter how long it takes. You’re too important to me._

_Please come back._

_I love you._

_Gerard_

* * *

Frank didn’t sleep after he went back to bed. He laid awake, staring at the ceiling and listening to the silence. He thought about blaming his insomnia on the fact that Liza wasn’t snoring in the corner like usual, but he didn’t think that was true, and the only person he was trying to convince was himself. Frank knew it was because of what Mikey had said, the sound of it echoing in his head like he was sitting right there, saying it over and over again in Frank’s ear.

_“You don’t get to miss him.”_

Frank knew that Mikey was right, and he knew that the majority of the last year had been one mistake after the other. He was no closer to achieving his dreams of ending up in the music industry, he hated his job, he hated his shitty apartment, and most of all, he felt terribly alone. He had been afraid of that happening when he first moved to the city, but his dad had told him that it happened to everyone. Frank knew that if he tried to reach out to Gerard when he felt like that, it would just make things harder on him, and he wasn’t willing to hurt Gerard just because he was lonely. He might not love him but he still cared about not hurting him more than he had to. Whatever he felt with Gerard would fade the longer that he stayed away, and he truly believed that. It was why he had made the decision to stop seeing him so suddenly.

But he had been wrong. Until a few weeks ago, Frank hadn’t let himself miss Gerard for the entire year he’d been away, but it hadn’t become any less painful. He had expected to still want him around, to miss the companionship that came with being in a relationship in general, but he hadn’t expected this. Frank didn’t miss his relationship, he missed Gerard.

He missed all of the little things that Gerard did, like the weird hours he kept and how he always tasted like coffee and cigarettes and that stupid honey cereal he never ran out of. He missed how Gerard would wake him up in the middle of the night just because Frank’s favorite part in whatever movie he was watching was about to come on. He missed the way that Gerard couldn’t pay attention to most anything for longer than fifteen minutes at a time, but he could focus on Frank for hours, in the same way that he could paint and sketch and create for hours. Frank was important to Gerard in the same way those things were important to Gerard and he knew what that meant. He knew how essential those things were to the very core of Gerard’s being.

It was Frank’s own fucking fault that he’d let that go.

His chest still ached when he thought about the possibility of never seeing Gerard again, of only finding out how he was doing in bits and pieces from Mikey and Ray. It especially ached when he thought about Gerard moving on and dating someone else. He knew that was jealous and selfish and horrible of him, to not want Gerard to move on and be happy, but he didn’t. Not with just anyone. He wanted Gerard to be happy with him.

And wasn’t that just the shittiest timing, to finally realize that he had been running from and avoiding the one person who was integral to his own happiness right when that person learned how to be happy without him again? Frank couldn’t even blame it on bad luck because he and his stupid beliefs about love being fake were directly at fault. His mood was understandably terrible when he gave up on sleep and got out of bed, and even though he tried to fake being cheery for Mikey and Ray’s sake, he was certain he wasn’t fooling anyone. Ray seemed confused, which Frank took to mean that Mikey hadn’t told him about their middle of the night conversation, but thankfully he didn’t ask Frank what was going on.

They left the apartment when Frank did, the two of them heading in the opposite direction of Frank and Liza after promising to come visit soon. Mikey looked at him a little strangely, and Frank could sense that he wanted to say something but he just shook his head before turning to Ray and walking away.

Frank had made the same walk almost every day for the last six months, so many times that he practically knew the way to Liza’s doggy day care place by heart, but he felt more lost than he ever had before. Even Liza seemed to sense how off he was feeling because she dragged her paws all the way but practically bolted inside as soon as the nice Cuban lady opened the door for her.

He trudged the rest of the way to his office, not really caring if he was late or early or on time. It didn’t matter, not really. The packages and the mail and the rude people who didn’t take credit for their own mistakes would still be there whenever he got there. Frank was no better than them, anyways. Taking credit for mistakes didn’t matter if it was a year too late.

His phone went off in his pocket and he took his time pulling it out. The last thing he needed was for Ray or Mikey to tell him that they’d left something in his apartment so he would have to go back — he would definitely be late then. He had just started to consider doing it anyways as if he truly didn’t care when he finally saw the screen of his phone.

It was a message from Gerard.

Frank abruptly stopped walking and the person behind him narrowly missed running into him, but Frank didn’t even bother acknowledging the person’s swear. He was too busy reading the message, trying to figure out what it meant.

He read the message again, and then again, and then again a fourth time. Each time, the message was the same, but Frank couldn’t stop himself from hoping that there was more to it. The message meant that Gerard hadn’t given up. The message meant that he hadn’t moved on. Before Frank could think about it and decide not to, he was pressing call and listening to the line ring. The line picked up and Frank spoke before Gerard could, just his name.

“Gerard.”

There was a moment of silence that dragged on for so long Frank looked at the screen to make sure the call was still active and Gerard hadn’t hung up on him, but the timer was still running. Frank put the phone back to his ear and heard Gerard’s voice for the first time in over a year.

“Frank?” The tone was hesitant and cautious and thin through the electronic speaker of Frank’s phone, but it was Gerard, and that was more than enough. He took a deep breath, so deep that his lungs almost hurt, and then he spoke.

“I miss you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> I never intended for this to be one of those stories where everyone ends up happy, but man if I didn't end up rooting for that anyways, even if I always knew how I was going to end it. I know — I KNOW, the ending is vague, but I hope you can imagine a world in which Frank and Gerard end up in each other's lives, no matter the extent. 
> 
> Major thanks to so many people —
> 
>   * The BBB mods: I was terrified that BBB wouldn't happen this year when I've only recently gotten into writing fic. I was also terrified that I would miss the deadline. Yet you were _so_ accommodating and so wonderful. Thank you.
>   * My steadfast and amazing beta [Catherine](http://softfrnk.tumblr.com/): You always come through even though you’re super busy with your own life. I appreciate the time you took to read through this fic even though I was super late getting it to you.
>   * My co-creator [Ashley](http://babyashleym.tumblr.com/): I have enjoyed getting to know you so very much. Thank you for sharing parts of your life with me and letting me pick up right where we left off even though we hadn't spoken for weeks at a time. Your mix is amazing.
>   * Everyone in the Bandom Writers Net: Thank you for helping me by participating in sprints whenever we could manage them. This fic is finished because of you.
>   * My wife [Lindsey](http://walktooblivion.tumblr.com/): You’ve always supported me at every step of this fic, including the twenty times I wanted to give up and all the times I said I hated every word I’ve ever written. Thank you for not letting me quit. Also thank you for suffering through whiny Frank and rambling Gerard. I know you hate and love them both in equal measure — I make no apologies for Mikey.
>   * My tumblr friends who always cheer me on: There are so many of you, too many to name individually and I’d be terrified to miss someone, but I love each and every one of you, even if all you do is like a post where I’m complaining about writing. You make me want to keep going. This one’s for you.
>   * Lastly, thank you to everyone who reads this fic. I hope it made you feel something.
> 

> 
> Like, comment if it moves you, and most definitely go listen to the [wonderful accompanying mix](https://goo.gl/sxYXnS) made by [babyashleym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyashleym). You can also send me asks or comments over at my [tumblr](http://mousefrnk.tumblr.com/).


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